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AUDIENCES 



Gwulef, FloreNoL. liar! UAj 

♦ I 



AUDIENCES 

A FEW SUGGESTIONS TO THOSE 
WHO LOOK AND LISTEN 



BY 

FLORENCE P. HOLDEN 




Copyright, 
By A. C. McClurg & Co. 

A.D. 1896 



PREFACE 



THE purpose of this little book is, I 
trust, sufficiently clear from the be- 
ginning. The thoughts all cluster about 
the two words " seeing" and " hearing." 
The ambition to be a good listener and 
seer is avowedly prevalent enough, but the 
methods of attaining these accomplish- 
ments are precarious almost beyond hope. 

When one talks with men and women 
who have had exceptional artistic advan- 
tages, and who are considered by their 
neighbors to be good amateurs as well 
as connoisseurs in this or that art, and 
when one discovers to his sorrow that they 
have actually no conception of the scope 
and real intent of the art to which they 
have devoted much time and more money, 
onP f ee i s keenly the need of simplicity, — 
the i. ..ed ot going; back from our histories 
to our alphabet. 



vi 



PREFACE 



When one talks with artists — men of 
worth and attainment in their several arts 
— and finds that they are ignorant of the 
accomplishments of their j fellow-artists 
working along other lines, and when they 
say that the thought that "all the arts are 
essentially one in purpose" is absolutely 
new to them, one wonders what they have 
been doing all their years, and feels again 
this need of going back from our histories 
to our alphabet. 

To know what pictures are good, what 
are bad ; what music is good, what demor- 
alizing; which statues and buildings to 
approve; what poetry to hold to, — these 
are accomplishments which mark the man 
or the woman of culture. 

F. P. H. 

Chicago, July, 1896. 



CONTENTS 



Page 

Audiences . . . n 

The Language of Form 2j 

Architecture 27 

The Language of Action 39 

Sculpture 44 

The Language of Line 51 

Etching 58 

The Language of Color 65 

Painting 90 

The Language of Word 99 

Poetry ^ . . . 120 

The Language of Tone 145 

Music 161 

The Musical-Drama 174 

Criticism 194 

The Talent of Art Appreciation .... 207 

Applause 216 

Encore 220 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Old Colonial House To face page 27 

Architectural Details : page 

Egyptian 29 

Grecian 30 

Roman 31 

Moorish 32 

Romanesque 33 

Florentine 34 

Venetian 34 

David the Victor To face page 39 

The Grief of Orpheus .... „ 44 

The Young Sophocles .... „ 46 

Sketch from Nogent „ 58 

Ringing the Christmas Bell . . „ 90 

The First Burials „ 212 



AUDIENCES 



IT is said of us abroad that American 
audiences are the most discriminat- 
ing in the world. With true American 
alacrity we immediately seize upon the 
" most " — we Americans guard jealously 
our superlatives — and scarcely stop to 
consider soberly the value of discrimi- 
nation. We are vain-glorious of mere 
magnitude, regarding accumulation in 
numbers, vastness in undertakings, width 
in fields and parks, height in buildings and 
monuments, ever multiplying, inventing, 
dreaming; but regarding discrimination, 
— that accomplishment of accomplish- 
ments, — even our all-embracing Ameri- 
can pride has scarcely taken heed to count 
this one of its gains. 

One looks or listens — why? To be 
diverted, to be entertained, to be amused; 



12 



AUDIENCES 



that everlasting French " il fant que nous 
nous amusions," or the still more demand- 
ing and insatiable Swedish national neces- 
sity. But how about the amusements that 
do not amuse, and the entertainments that 
do not entertain, the music that leaves the 
ears empty, the pictures that leave the 
eyes unsatisfied, the words that leave 
the heart void ? What have we of this 
"discriminating" nation to say of these 
things ? 

If critics — artistic, dramatic, and other- 
wise — could direct some of the surplus 
American ambition and enthusiasm into 
the channel of thinking something sensi- 
ble about all these things, and more than 
this, of seeing nothing sensible in those 
worthless "art treasures " which have 
been too long treasured, our American 
discrimination might grow into a matter 
for just pride. 

We say and think "American dis- 
crimination " in a high-sounding and 
high-seeming melodramatic way, when 
in reality this is a matter of individual 
concern rather than of masses and of 
nationality. We do not question the 



A UDIENCES 



13 



social necessity of being a good listener 
as well as a good conversationist, nor do 
we question the fact that we cannot all 
be good solo-players, stars, and prima 
donnas; but we do constantly and stub- 
bornly overlook the fact that we are all 
playing the role of audience, — against 
our will maybe, or rather without our 
inclination, nevertheless an important 
role. Do we play it indifferently, or 
well ? 

The role of audience — let us defy sin- 
gular and plural for awhile, and think 
of ourselves as one in many and many in 
one, just to catch for an instant a clear 
glimpse of what it means to look and lis- 
ten, singly and collectively. 

An audience is essential to every artist, 
whatever his art, and yet an artist's real 
audience — the audience for which he 
works out his life — is never composed of 
those careless and aimless lookers and lis- 
teners, who assuredly pay well for their 
places; yes, even too dearly, for they re- 
ceive nothing in return, they carry noth- 
ing away. None but those that have been 



A UDIENCES 



trained, or more properly have trained 
themselves, to see and hear, to look and 
listen, have any right to an artist's seri- 
ous regard or consideration, and truth 
to say none but those trained seers and 
hearers ever do receive that regard. 

We gather ourselves together at inter- 
vals, in times and seasons, to look and lis- 
ten. We applaud because our neighbor 
applauds, we are silent because our neigh- 
bor is silent, we praise because mayhap 
our neighbor praises, *or blame because 
he blames. Or perhaps we are ambitious, 
we would lead, we would set the fashion, 
we would make the reputation of this or 
that artist, so we applaud that our neigh- 
bor may hear and applaud because — we 
do. 

Or we separate ourselves from our 
neighbor at intervals, in times and sea- 
sons, to look and listen for ourselves, 
with not the least regard for our neigh- 
bor or our neighbor's neighbor. The 
more shame! We constitute ourselves 
an audience, and flatter ourselves that 
upon the whole we make an estimable 
one. Upon us no touch of art-finesse, 



A UDIENCES 



15 



no detail of art-workmanship is lost, 
for, understanding the technique of this 
or that art, we alone have the right to 
disapprove and commend, and our com- 
mendation most surely must flatter the 
workman. We approve — that is enough. 
Let the crowds go for what the crowds 
are worth, which is never much. 

What a Vanity of Vanities lies in the 
human desire to become personally at- 
tractive, to gain personal acquirements, 
— wealth and clothes apart, — ■ to attain 
personal accomplishments, to dominate, 
to possess, to shine! The keynote of 
false culture is selfishness, its mediant 
is egoism, its dominant is pride, and in 
this key many lives are played out even 
to the grand or more often the humiliat- 
ing finale. 

But when we see clearly, when we hear 
truly, are we not giving to all artists our 
highest respect, our best appreciation, 
our wisest and most helpful applause? 
This is the applause for which every 
artist works, if he be worthy the name 
of artist. It is generous to attend when 
an artist speaks or when he paints. To 



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AUDIENCES 



look and listen — these truly have no 
slight value in the sum of possible human 
attainments, and contribute no small share 
to the sum of human joy, — that joy after 
which we all strive, ever insatiate. 

An audience is therefore essential to 
every artist, but one must constantly 
remember that it is only the audience 
that sees and hears which can supply this 
want. We read of Beethoven's supreme 
indifference to his critics, but on the 
" Mass in D " is written, " From the 
heart it came and to the heart it shall 
penetrate." He was sure of his audi- 
ence, — sure that his message would find 
a response; nay, why is a " Mass " written 
but to be sung and heard ? 

Architects, sculptors, painters, are not 
only confident of their audiences but 
dependent on them, else why would they 
build? They may work regardless of an 
audience if the time be averse or unim- 
pressionable or unsympathetic; but can 
we say that a thought once having found 
expressed form is ever destroyed before 
it has reached its audience? Art with 



A UDIENCES 



17 



its definiteness of form gives a strong and 
palpable existence to thought. This is 
art's consummate power. The Greeks 
intended more in their story of Pygma- 
lion and his work than we to-day are 
likely to read into it. 

There is one point in all art-work, of 
whatever kind, of which we may be very 
sure, that is, that every artist works 
directly for his audience, and never 
primarily for the glory of art, however 
vociferously and persistently and igno- 
rantly he may state that he does so. 
There is somewhat in the artist tempera- 
ment — in the desire to create — which 
takes note, not only of its own creations 
but of their environment also, of the 
humanity that looks upon it. Art is 
nothing unless its end be human. In 
itself it is no end. It can never be more 
than a means, however many statements 
may be made to the contrary. 

Misunderstanding is no greater or less 
in affairs of art than in all other human 
affairs, but here as elsewhere there seem 
to be germinal points of misunderstand- 
ing which need to be considered if we 



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would see distinctly its cause. The two 
great fields in which all art-work is done 
are seldom clearly conceived even by 
artists themselves. Architecture, sculp- 
ture, and painting make their appeal to 
the eye, music appeals to the ear, and 
poetry both to the eye and to the ear. The 
arts which appeal to the eye alone, come 
to us complete from the master's hand, 
standing for themselves and allowing no 
false impressions; but the arts which 
appeal to the ear as well as to the eye 
or to the ear alone, depending as they do 
upon interpretation, are subject to grave 
misunderstanding, — the fault lying fre- 
quently in both the interpreter and his 
audience. 

An artist has the right to make just 
one demand of his audience; the rights 
of an audience — who will limit? The 
artist demands that his audience shall 
understand the language of his art; he can 
ask no more, but this much is essential. 
One may protest that artists like Coquelin 
and Mme. Bernhardt do not find just this 
intelligence in their American audiences 
for example, but French is not the only 



A UDIENCES 



19 



language through which they make their 
appeal. Their art includes the languages 
of tone and action as well as words, and 
these are universal. 

As audience we need to study language 
more, — Line Language, Form Language, 
Color Language, Word Language, Action 
Language, Tone Language. We should 
go back from our histories to our alphabet. 
We have all learned more historical facts 
than we can well remember. What is 
the use of cramming more when we are 
in danger of forgetting what we already 
have? Language is our concern, man 
being essentially a speaking being, and 
language being the medium through which 
he utters himself. 

Great artists have worked gigantically 
to tell us this, and through their effort 
something has been learned. Many men 
have learned the language of Beethoven. 
It took years. Some have learned the 
language of Wagner; some of Chaucer, 
of Shakespeare, and Browning; some of 
Phidias and Angelo; of Raphael; of 
Manet and Monet; of Corot, Israels, and 
Zorn. 



20 



A UDIENCES 



A man who works in marble and plas- 
ter all his life must know what plaster 
and marble can say and what they cannot 
say. Lessing has told us much of all this 
in his " Laocoon," but this is not enough. 
This is merely the getting started, All 
the critics and sestheticians tell us the 
beginning. How few tell us how what is 
said should be said ! This is what con- 
cerns us as audience. Let the artist say 
what he will, let us know how it should 
be well said, and let us applaud when it 
is well said. 



THE LANGUAGE OF FORM 



BECAUSE architecture deals with 
matter in huge masses, because so 
many material agencies are essential to 
any accomplishment in this art, it is 
named the first and lowest of the Fine 
Arts. The sculptor for his work needs 
only his clay and marble, his plaster and 
bronze; the painter has enough in his 
canvas and paper, his color tubes and 
pans; the poet and the musician need 
only the materials of sound and action; 
but the architect is less subtle in his art, 
and therefore more demanding in his 
materials, for he uses almost every con- 
ceivable substance for his artistic me- 
dium. 

Building is a primary necessity of man, 
and although the huts of the savage have 
little interest for the student of architec- 



22 



A UDIENCES 



ture to-day, still, to understand structure^ 
all forms, whether natural or artificial, are 
filled with suggestiveness. To know how 
the foundations of the earth are laid is to 
know much of structure, and to know all 
beautiful details of nature's branchwork 
— above ground or below — is to know 
much of ornament. When we examine 
with the geologist the great building up 
of the foundation of the earth's crust 
with its differences of structural strata, 
and the formation of the huge structural 
mountain ridges and peaks; or watch 
with the botanist the infinite variations 
which plants show in their complexity 
of branches and veins, and their multi- 
plicity of shapes in leaves and flowers, 
we are then learning lessons of deepest 
meaning in structure and ornament. 

The Fine Art of Architecture is apt to 
be considered a province of study for the 
architect alone, when as a matter of fact 
most architects are mere draughtsmen, 
the few exceptions standing out in bold 
relief from the background of artisanship. 
Architects concern themselves overmuch 
with a mere drafting of plans, and if by 



THE LANGUAGE OF FORM 23 



chance they possess a certain artistic in- 
clination toward ornamental design, they 
think their end is attained. 

Architecture as an art presupposes a 
knowledge of all available building ma- 
terials, both those which are useful for 
support and those which are beautiful for 
ornament, — the mental ability to design 
or plan so as to make a harmonious scheme 
for the eye, — as in the great temples and 
cathedrals, — and the artistic ability to 
embody some expression, as of elegance, 
massiveness, grace, delicacy. Architec- 
ture demands of its masters a wonder- 
ful breadth of knowledge, — knowledge 
of structure, geological and mechanical, 
knowledge of form and arrangement, 
knowledge of color and its harmonies, and 
a knowledge of the symbolism of forms 
for ornamentation. An architect cannot 
be too learned, too versed in studies of 
antiquity, of antique and modern design, 
elemental and complex. He needs all 
the equipment which the learning of the 
ages can give, and more than this, the 
ability to use this equipment, for in this 
art is brought into play most strongly the 



2 4 



A UDIENCES 



power of co-ordination, — that highest 
function of the human intellect. 

There are always a throng of tourists in 
Europe and America who go about gazing 
at cathedrals and storehouses, who are 
not unskilled perhaps in recognizing a 
detail of the Renaissance or a bit of Moor- 
ish design, but who nevertheless have 
very little grasp of the artistic intent of 
architecture, and very little idea of the 
immensity of the study or of the oppor- 
tunity which building offers for the ex- 
pression of individuality as well as good 
taste. Take any detail of architecture 
and see how full of meaning it is. An 
architect will tell you, that the charac- 
teristic differences between the various 
styles of building, lie primarily in the 
various forms of support which give shape 
to the openings for doors and windows, or 
in the manner of covering any space, as in 
roofing. 

The manner in which men built their 
windows in the past ages of history, 
gives a remarkable index to the character- 
istic inclinations, the bent, the turn, the 
inspiration of their lives. Look at the 



THE LANGUAGE OF FORM 25 



aspiring Gothic windows, the smooth 
assuring Renaissance arches, the voluptu- 
ously artistic Moorish openings, and com- 
pare them with the intellectual life, the 
artistic taste, the ethical atmosphere of 
their times. To this add the distinct dif- 
ferences toward ornament, and one has an 
impression tremendously strong and truly 
symbolic of each age. 

Commencing at the lowest of the Fine 
Arts, Architecture in a certain sense in- 
cludes or rather uses all the other arts. 
The ancients, as they builded, appointed a 
distinct use for each art as an ornament 
to the structure itself. The temple build- 
ings of the Greeks used what of carving 
would make the structure itself beautiful, 
as in the capitals and columns; of bas- 
relief for decoration in the frieze and 
metope, adding color to these for orna- 
ment; then the higher development of 
group statuary on the pediment, and the 
single statue of the goddess within the 
temple ; then perhaps painted pictures as 
frescos with higher meaning; and finally 
used poetry and music for their prayers 
and praises, — the chief end of all the 



26 



AUDIENCES 



immensity of structural purpose. How 
often have students of antiquity forgotten 
this end ! 

Here in the lowest of the arts all the 
arts are combined, — each in its place 
separate and distinct; but as the arts 
progress in expressional power, and par- 
ticularly in poetry, each lower art is not 
only included in the higher art, but so 
intimately blended as to be an integral 
part of a complete whole. Wagner, the 
great art-architect, shows wonderful co- 
ordination, but still in his work each art 
is distinct, each can be taken by itself, 
perfect, complete, — with, however, a more 
subtle and vital interdependence than we 
find in architecture, and which makes his 
Musical Drama a unit. This is in its 
comprehensiveness and its various powers 
of utterance the highest art, and in a 
degree balances the comprehensiveness of 
this primary Art of Architecture. 



ARCHITECTURE 



O some extent architecture is becom- 



JL ing "the fad." The restlessness 
and ambition of to-day seek an outlet 
in continual building and remodeling, 
and while a goodly share of attention is 
directed to architecture as a beginning 
for the expression of individual taste in 
interior decoration, still this attention 
creates a certain interest in architecture 
itself, and in the effort to display in build- 
ing as well as in interior decoration, the 
individuality of the owner. 

Modern architecture has at its command 
the wealth of structural arrangement and 
artistic ornament that has slowly and nat- 
urally grown to be characteristic of the 
nations which have made the world's his- 
tory. This structure and ornament have 
come to us to-day ready-made, just as our 
words have come ; but they do not hamper 




28 



A UDIEXCES 



the individuality of the modern architect 
any more than language hampers the 
modern poet. The fact that through the 
stupidity of the many, a large proportion 
of modern buildings have come to be 
ungainly conglomerations of foreign orna- 
ment and structure, does not prove that 
there is no scope for originality in archi- 
tectural design. The work of many well- 
known architects gives visible proof to 
the contrary. 

Until one has learned to look upon ma- 
terial, structure, and ornament, as an art 
language for the embodiment of a great art, 
he has not gone far toward grasping the 
meaning of the art of architecture. Ma- 
terial, structure, and ornament comprise 
the medium through which man expresses 
some idea when he builds, and this idea 
must be read in the form, the shape 
into which these are finally constructed. 
In material for building there is a wide 
variety, but without considering the ec- 
centricities of material that man, half- 
civilized, uses for his hut when he builds 
with ice in the north, and leaves in the 
south, and turf between north and south, — 



ARCHITECTURE 



29 



there are vast differences in meaning be- 
tween buildings of wood and of stone, of 
brick and of iron. In structure, too, there 
are wide differences in meaning between 
the complex and over-wrought complica- 
tions of Japanese roofing 
and the simplicity of the 
old colonial or the clas- 
sic. In ornament, as well, 
there is apparent this same 
variety in meaning and in- 
tent, from the over-laden 
decoration of the Hindu 
to the severity of the 
Roman. 

The simple massiveness 
of Egyptian building 
accords well with that 
strange country, where 
labor, the lot of the slaves, was for the 
whim of the ruler. The flat roofs of 
stone were upheld by tremendous round 
columns, sometimes proportionately low, 
with the lotus-flower capital. Vegetable 
forms played in Egypt an important part 
in ornament, as did the religious symbols, 
the winged-disk and scarabeus, and the 




EGYPTIAN 



3° 



A UDIENCES 



heroic scenes from history graven in re- 
lief on their monuments, and colored with 

the flat, crude, dark 
tones significant of 
these dark Nile 
people, to whom 
the plentifulness of 
their river and the 
power of their sun 
presented unfath- 
omable mysteries, 
but mysteries which 
in their own dark 
crude way they 
sought to express. 
In Greece we find 
the roof in gable shape, forming a broad 
obtuse angle, having a por- 
tico which is upheld with 
columns. Here the columns 
vary, from the severe Doric 
with the plain square capi- 
tal, to the scroll of the Ionic 
and the elaborate leaf-forms 
of the Corinthian. The or- 
nament, whether conventionalized, as in 
the tiny arrow and egg border, or freely 






ARCHITECTURE 



31 



artistic, as in the bas-relief of the frieze, or 
complete, as in the 




ROMAN 



pediment statuary, 
is always exceptional 
and noteworthy. 
The best that all the 
arts could give was 
never too good. 
Greek art was con- 
summate in its ex- 
pression of the beau- 
tiful. 

In Rome, a greater 
knowledge of struc- 
ture is manifested; 

its practical and powerful inhabitants 
ruled by force and not by 
beauty or culture. Here is 
the arch, with stones cut 
wedge-shaped, so placed that 
they bear their own weight, 
and upheld by columns, as 
was the pediment in Greece. 
Power and strength were first 
prominent, but in the later 
days came the luxury of imi- 
tation, and the grandeur of the Greek 




.Ml 

ROMAN 



32 



A UDIENCES 



temple fagade was contracted to fit about 
the hitherto simple window, now boasting 
both pediment and columns. 

In the Moorish buildings of Spain, the 
picturesque arch, in a bulbous curve either 
pointed or round, is al- 
ways in evidence, and 
above this the flat roof 
shuts the light of the 
sun at noon from the 
gorgeousness and glit- 
ter of the gold -work 
within. Columns are 
here in great number, 
and the arabesque deco- 
rations and colors show 
an extravagance and a 
regardlessness of cost 
which characterize all 
Spanish building and Spanish tempera- 
ment as well. 

In the Romanesque buildings, another 
complexity of structure is presented in 
the flying buttress and in the multiply- 
ing of arches for windows and doorways. 
The arches are in receding planes, and 
each is upheld by its own pair of pillars. 




MOORISH 



ARCHITECTURE 



33 




Ornamentation is 
now worked out more 
broadly than ever be- 
fore, with much con- 
ventionality of detail, 
as in the leafage and 
branch-work, but 
with great freedom 
of execution. Here 
are always present 
exquisite effects of light and 
shade 





ROMANESQUE 



in the 

sharp deep-cut 
chiseling, and a 
boldness of 
treatment which 
is characteristic 
of the age of the 
Renaissance. 

Florence 
shows in pride 
her great rusti- 
cated stone- 
work; and Ven- 
ice, itself a vari-colored ornament joyously 
bedecking the bosom of the sea, boasts 
3 



ROMANESQUE 



34 



A UDIENCES 




« *r' ; 



FLORENTINE 



a picturesqueness of ornamentation which 
is gladly left unchallenged. 

America shows everything, 
from the quaint Old Colo- 
nial Homesteads to the varied 
achievements of to-day. Take 
the Colonial home, for example. 
The "Old Colonial" is having 
its day in fashion just now. 
Notice what possibilities it 
presents. The structure of 
wood or brick shows a utility 
of purpose rather than an aim 
at artistic arrangement. The 
form of the roof, gambrel or 
hip, gives, like the French 
mansard, space for ample 
rooms below, and in itself an 
attic with dormer windows, 
so attractive just now to the 
searcher for antiquities in 
high-post bedsteads and high- 
backed chairs. 

The arrangement of rooms 
either side of the broad hall 
running all the way through 
the middle, suggests the amplitude and 




VENETIAN 



ARCHITECTURE 



35 



hospitality of the old English Colonial 
days, when every householder had a little 
kingdom of his own, unthreatened by far- 
distant kings and queens and parliaments. 
The porches and porticoes are for comfort, 
and suggest the days in England when 
the Commoners were men of affairs and 
importance. 

With little pretension toward the beau- 
tiful, the Colonial house proclaims itself 
for comfort and domestic usefulness — its 
aim and accomplishment. It assuredly is 
assertive in character, but it belongs to a 
time when the householder felt his right 
to assert, and his power to dispense with a 
liberal hand. Here is no crowding and 
jostling, no curtailment, no niggardli- 
ness. This house means amplitude and 
abundance. 

In ornament it shows some choice 
details. The entrance boasts a pilaster 
on either side and an entablature and 
pediment above; the porches show col- 
umns quite classic and pure; the mold- 
ings and cornice are always present ; 
and the quaint panes of glass give charac- 
ter to the whole. If one looks he is sure 



36 



A UDIENCES 



to find the Colonial shell ornament, which 
is always in evidence, either above the 
entrance or over a group of side windows 
as here shown, or in the interior, over the 
cupboard or mantel shelf, or in some queer 
little stairway niche. The possibilities 
of the interior for decoration lead rather 
toward comfort, sunlight, and spaciousness 
than picturesqueness of artistic nooks and 
corners, though the dormer rooms present 
intricacies enough to satisfy the most 
insatiable corner seeker. 

This old homestead serves far better for 
illustration than some complex structure 
of greater artistic pretensions, because it 
shows a simplicity of intention which can- 
not be better exemplified. The language 
of material, structure, and ornament here 
combine to say one thing, and they say it 
well. This is it: "We show abundance 
and prosperity in material achievements, 
and the comfort which comes with such 
prosperity. " 

Great temples can chant a classic hymn 
of praise, aspiring churches can breathe 
a prayer and whisper a hope, massive 
tombs can hint at eternity, superb palaces 



ARCHITECTURE 37 



can herald royalty, mansions can proclaim 
mammon and gold, mountain villas can 
boast their bravery, lake houses can sing 
of peace and quiet ; but the " Old Colonial 
House" proclaims its plenty. It does not 
typify culture of intellect or aspiration 
of soul, but it proclaims the wealth of the 
soil and the abundance which comes of 
the sun and the rain. 



DAVID THE VICTOR. 



THE LANGUAGE OF ACTION 



HE language of action, which 



J~ shapes all matter into definite and 
meaning form, can be studied in all of 
nature's handiwork — in plants and all 
growing things, in prairies, lakes, rivers, 
mountains and clouds. All growth, all 
development is an active unfolding, a 
branching forth from simplicity to com- 
plexity. The universe knows no rest : 
the throb of the vibratory force of life 
stirs all matter, and shapes it into the 
forms we know and name as distinct sub- 
stances, and into the shapes we know as 
organic wholes. An artist who would 
reproduce an oak must know just how 
the oak will put forth its branches, at 
what intervals, in what order; so with the 
artist among animals, the action of their 




40 



A UDIENCES 



lives mast be with him an elementary- 
study. As in the animal, added to the 
action of growth, is the greater complex- 
ity of locomotion with which comes its 
mastery over nature and its added power of 
expression, so in man, highest in the 
scale of creation, is found the greatest 
complexity of action, that forceful lan- 
guage of the sculptor's art. 

That artists of the past have exhausted 
the language of action, is not true. That 
the Greeks understood man's physical 
form as mere physical structure, is evi- 
dent; but they had little conception of 
action in its dramatic sense. To make 
this clear has devolved upon modern 
sculpture. All art-lovers are worshippers 
of the antique in sculpture; but it is for 
our use, not for our limitation. Look, 
learn, and pass on. Perfection is still far 
beyond. Some nations have strangely 
conventionalized their sculpture, ming- 
ling with it their religious thought ; or 
better, it has struggled through their 
dense religious atmosphere to a strangely 
conventionalized embodiment, particular- 
ly in the sculptured records which cover 



THE LANGUAGE OF ACTION 4 1 



the walls of Egyptian tombs and temples, 
the frequent sphinx, and in Assyria the 
winged bulls and lions. That the reli- 
gion of the Greeks was responsible for its 
sculpture, we know. Are we ignorant 
that it set something of its limitation on 
its sculpture, as well ? 

Appreciation of sculpture all depends 
upon what message human action, ges- 
ture and form have for us. Whether we 
believe with Darwin as to man's develop- 
ment, or in the creative design and pat- 
tern and spark of divinity, or both, it is 
true that certain thoughts and feelings 
have habitually found expression through 
certain well-worn channels, until every 
line of the body is resplendent with mean- 
ing, from the turn of the eyebrow to 
the lifting of the foot. One must be able 
to read this human language before he can 
hope to know anything of action. 

All the plastic arts catch the thought 
or sentiment of the moment alone, and 
further than this can be only suggestive. 
A great sculptor, however, will not im- 
poverish his expression because perforce 
it must be momentary. Look at Mercie's 



42 



A UDIEXCES 



"David the Victor." The lithe young 
body swings supplely with the curve of the 
sword as he sheathes it. One foot rests, 
scarcely with emphasis, on the severed 
head of the conquered giant; the poise 
of the proud young head and the almost 
over-sureness of the mouth give great 
promise of things to come. The head is 
still bent in concentrated attention to the 
sheathing of the sword. It will be raised 
soon to remember his triumph. Here 
the artist, with conscious strength, sug- 
gests the combat that is past and the 
triumphs that are to come, not alone from 
this victory, but from the victories of the 
man as well as of the boy. It is this 
promise of greatness which proves the 
work masterful. 

Action is the special province of sculp- 
ture. Whether the statue represents re- 
pose or movement, it must be so true to 
the laws of action, that we can conceive 
of the action that led to the sculptured 
moment and also the action which fol- 
lows it. Form too, belongs to sculpture, 
but there can be no art-form without 
motion, — save in architecture, for there, 



THE LANGUAGE OF ACTION 43 

assuredly, action would be absurd indeed. 
Conceive the Parthenon skipping down 
joyfully from its foundations on the Acro- 
polis, or the Pyramids prancing around 
the Sphinx. 



SCULPTURE 



HESE two figures by modern sculp- 



1- tors are essentially modern in 
treatment, though classic in pose, and il- 
lustrating classic subjects. To the care- 
less they seem very similar in pose and 
outline when looked at from a certain 
direction; but one is the embodiment of 
joy and triumph, the other of sorrow and 
loss. Both are posed with the weight on 
the advanced foot as they are stepping 
toward us, — the Orpheus giving the effect 
of swifter motion. Both have a lyre raised 
high in air. Both are represented al- 
most at the height of action — when the 
hand has left the strings with a long 
sweeping movement. Both figures show 
the head well raised and turned toward 
the lyre. It would seem as if there were 




THE GRIEF OF ORPHEUS. 



SCULPTURE 



45 



great similarity, and still, they express 
the most opposite emotions, as one trained 
to see can tell at a glance. 

Sculpture is heroic. It deals with the 
expression of great thoughts and feelings. 
Here are two strong simple expressions. 
It adds to the interest to know that one 
artist had the young poet Sophocles in 
mind as he worked, the other had the 
sweet singer Orpheus; but without this 
catalogue-information, we know at once 
that two great human emotions are repre- 
sented, one of triumphant joy, the other 
of sorrowful loss; there is no need of a 
catalogue to tell this. As similar as the 
figures are in treatment, the simple line 
of motion in each figure shows, even at 
a great distance when the details are lost, 
the difference in meaning. By taking 
each division of the figures for compari- 
son and analyzing it we shall more clearly 
see the difference. 

Were there nothing of the figures but 
the heads and arms, the meaning would 
be definite; the torsos and legs but carry 
out the expression of the heads, or better, 
the heads and hands indicate definitely 



46 



A UDIENCES 



the meaning of the bodies. In the Soph- 
ocles, the head is erect and firm. It is 
the head that controls, that is sure of 
victory, sure of achievement. The eyes 
are very definite and steady; the mouth 
opened in a shout of joy. The Orpheus 
head is dropped very far back. The mus- 
cles are relaxed, they show loss of power, 
and the head, turned very far to the side, 
gives a horizontal movement which is sig- 
nificant of suffering. The eyes — one 
knows nothing of the eyes, — they are 
unimportant, blinded with grief. 

Next the arms and hands. In the 
Sophocles figure the hands are raised on 
a level with the forehead, giving an indi- 
cation of intellectual control and an im- 
pression of intellectuality to the entire 
pose. The hands are firm and active. 
The lyre is held securely. The right 
hand, which has just left the strings, 
shows clearly a certain mastery in the 
prominence given to the third and fourth 
fingers, — the fourth finger always indi- 
cating the especial inspiration of Apollo, 
the god of all the arts. In the Orpheus 
figure the arms are raised high above the 



THE YOUNG SOPHOCLES. 



SCULPTURE 



47 



head and the left one thrown somewhat 
back at the shoulder, which, relaxed as 
the muscles are, indicates an abandon- 
ment of grief that is very effective. The 
lyre is just hung on the right thumb, 
pending by its own weight, for the hand 
has no grasp, and no vitality except at the 
base of the palm. This, as is shown also 
in the left hand, gives an impression of 
extreme weariness, an outward pushing 
motion as if he would cast off his sorrow 
for very weariness of it. 

The torsos of the two figures are very 
expressive, — both a little back from the 
perpendicular, one with the muscles taut 
and firm, the embodiment of power; the 
other posed farther back, with the muscles 
relaxed and loosened, to show the loss 
of control. In the Sophocles figure the 
legs are very straight and both knees 
firm, still carrying out the effect of self- 
mastery ; while in the Orpheus, both knees 
have an unsureness and relaxation admir- 
ably typical of loss of power. The whole 
shows grief unrestrained. 

Orpheus, sweet singer, divine music- 
maker, charmer of beasts and birds, mover 



4 8 



A UDIENCES 



of trees and plants, of rocks and stones, 
incarnation of the power of finely blended 
tones; neither gods nor men can resist 
the wonder of your song, the sorrow of 
your plaint. The old Greek story but 
half tells the meaning of the myth which 
you enshrine. Artists alone know you 
as you are, and though they feel all, ex- 
press but part, Great was your joy when 
you won the love of Eurydice, the great 
joy of love. Great now is your grief, for 
she is dead. Sweet and subtle is your 
plaint, yea, sweet enough to enwrap and 
soothe the great dog Cerberus as he fawns 
at your feet. Pluto surely was power- 
less to resist your outpouring of woe, for 
back to your heart he promises to send 
your bride. Memory drifts with the 
olden tale to the scene when you stole 
forth from the gloomy halls of the dead. 
Swift and swifter you go, ever upward 
and upward toward the realms of day. 
In the shadow we strive to see Eurydice 
following. With you, we feel the inten- 
sity which must look though it lose all — 
for the command, "Turn not back to see 
her till you have reached the sun," still 



SCULPTURE 



49 



rings in our ears. With you we turn to 
look, — and woe is ours, — for, slipping 
back, falling, departing, gone is the fair- 
est of earth's fair forms, gone is the 
truest of earth's true hearts, — for we have 
not the patience to wait until our eyes 
"see not blindly. " Long is the story, 
full of symbolic significance, and art will 
probably never exhaust it. There is still 
so much to tell. But, of all the story, 
here is the first grief. This much is pal- 
pable — sorrow and loss and self-aban- 
donment, grief and wretchedness; but it 
is ever the grief that can be sung, the 
sorrow that can be spoken, and there is 
always hope for this sort, for it presages 
the peace to come. It is the unutterable, 
the silent, that endures. 

The Sophocles gives the opposite emo- 
tion — the joy of triumph. We can go 
back, if we choose, to his own Greece and 
live over the war times and the victories. 
We can see the councils and ceremonies. 
We can see the youth Sophocles, chosen 
of all the youths of Athens fittest to lead 
the great chorus in Salamis, to honor the 
triumphs of her armies when Persia is 
4 



50 



A UDIENCES 



overcome; and as the lyre sends forth its 
glorious note and the shout of joy out- 
pours, we can feel the great sway of the 
freedom of Greece, — her breadth, her 
unrestraint, her joy. 



THE LANGUAGE OF LINE 



,NE of two facts forces itself into 



V_y prominence as we watch an artist's 
use of lines — their complexity or their 
simplicity. One artist will use the most 
complex line-work to treat the same 
subject which another artist would ex- 
press with a few strokes. As an artist's 
impression of his subject is simple and 
strong, or complex, and delicate in detail, 
so will his treatment of it be, and the 
characteristics of his temperament or 
mood can be easily read by his simplicity 
or complexity of line. 

Art students are apt to be over-impa- 
tient in their line-work. They begrudge 
the time spent with charcoal and coarse 
paper. They are eager for color, and 
so fail to gain a mastery of line. Lack 
of strength, lack of vitality in an artist's 
workmanship may almost always be attrib- 




52 



A UDIENCES 



uted to a failure to gain in the begin- 
ning this mastery of line. A mastery 
of line means a mastery of form, for in 
lines the artist reproduces form, and 
form is the intellectual quality in all 
the arts, and is always the basis for good 
workmanship. 

Consider the meaning of form. Matter 
in masses possesses certain chemical and 
physical qualities peculiar to its sub- 
stance, but is nothing except a mass, a 
lump. The artist takes this mass, chisels 
or moulds it, makes a block or column, 
a jar, a vase, a statue. His thought has 
shaped the mass into definite form, has 
given it outline, has made of it an object, 
has created a new thing. 

When this is put as an outline on 
paper, line must mean not only the angle 
or curve which gives shape to an object, 
but must also mean the softness of feathers, 
the brilliancy of crystals, the resonance 
of brass, the resistance of iron, the fibre 
of wood, the weave of fabrics. Line must 
mean light and shade, must mean color 
value, must mean sunlight and air, motion 
of leaves, storm movements, drowsy con- 



THE LANGUAGE OF LINE 53 



tent of sheep and cows ; and when man is 
represented, line is fairly lifted beyond 
itself, and outline shows form pliantly 
suggestive of thought and feeling. 

Style is as apparent in an etcher's use 
of line as in an author's use and combina- 
tion of words, for words give form to an • 
author's thought as lines give form to the 
thought of an etcher. It would perhaps 
be interesting to follow out the suggestion 
that there are strong analogies between 
the style of diction of certain writers and 
the line-work of certain etchers, for the 
same characteristic tendencies of thought 
are to be found in artists who work in 
very different materials. 

Precision of line and variety in its use 
constitute the strength of line language. 
Notice the different methods by which 
artists work. Some fumble with their 
lines, trying here and there until they 
hit just the right one and it deepens into 
a definite meanipg. Others like Helleu 
do their thinking beforehand, and putting 
down the result, succeed with the first 
attempt. 

It is of technical interest to watch the 



54 



A UDIENCES 



various kinds of lines which serve the 
artist to express the object he wishes to 
show. A little, blunt, stubby line for a 
shadow serves to detach one sheep from a 
flock; fine, quivering, uncertain lines give 
vagueness to far-away hills and waters. 
A clear clean curve gives a sweep of 
motion to a horse's haunch, and a small 
splashy dot gives fire to an eye. Watch 
how surely the master-hand swings a 
curving line, and how uncertain are the 
scraw T ls of the aimless mind. 

In the study of line, the Japanese have 
perhaps more to teach us than any other 
nation. They tell a story of one of their 
artists, who for twelve hours lay face 
downward over the side of a bridge to 
watch the swimming carp. At the end 
of that time he had just one line on his 
paper as the result of his long watching, 
but that single line showed with marvel- 
ous accuracy the graceful movement of 
the fish. Quite a lesson in application 
for the present day impressionist ! The 
exquisite line-work of the Japanese artists 
is a rich field for study. Their patience 
of observation and content with a minute 



THE LANGUAGE OF LINE 55 



quantity in the way of accomplishment 
lead to wonderful accuracy of movement 
in trees and animals. In figure-work 
their love of the grotesque and national 
peculiarities of attitude creep in, — a 
consideration of which would lead far 
in another direction which does not now 
concern us. 

Line-work, and especially in the prov- 
ince of etchings, — decidedly its most 
subtle sphere, — has an advantage above 
other art-works in having a select and 
limited audience. Etchings seldom catch 
the popular attention as do paintings and 
music, for they are not enough of a pic- 
ture to appeal to the unobserving, so a 
certain good taste and intelligence can 
be presupposed in an etching audience, 
— a fact of which one should be assured 
before mentioning Whistler. It is not 
necessary to say anything of him how- 
ever; look at his lines, they speak for 
themselves. 

There is one particular reason why it 
is impossible for the uninitiated to appre- 
ciate etchings. When they can see that 
there has been a distinct attempt to make 



56 



A UDIENCES 



a picture, they can see a certain beauty 
and perhaps value in an etching; but the 
real value of etching, — its power to 
record with great spontaneity and concen- 
tration the immediate impression of an 
artist, — this cannot possibly be appreci- 
ated by one who has not learned the lan- 
guage of line. 

It sounds trite to say that there is no 
such thing as a line in nature, and yet 
when one grasps the reality of this trite 
saying, he is already on the pleasant by- 
path reserved for the connoisseurs and 
appreciative lovers of this exquisite and 
exhilarating art of etching. It must be 
always kept in mind that the line is an 
invention of man's mind, and the art 
which uses lines as its medium of ex- 
pression must use them with a certain 
foreknowledge of their symbolism and 
meaning. As words are the invention of 
man's mind, they are therefore conven- 
tionalized symbols for thought, and are 
quite distinct from nature's great w r orld 
of tone, just as lines are distinct from 
nature's great world of color. The etcher 
chooses to use lines to express what he 



THE LANGUAGE OF LINE $7 



sees in nature, and by the free and rapid 
tracing of his delicate needle on the wax- 
covered plate, exposes his lines to the 
action of the acid, and so prints his work, 
and sends it forth an authentic autograph 
of his individuality. 

As audience we have been very slow in 
learning this language of line, as alien 
to our untrained eyes as Sanskrit is to 
our untrained ears; and yet behind this 
language lies a rich realm of art, just as 
behind the Sanskrit lies a rich realm of 
literature entirely unrevealed to the un- 
learned. Commonplace audiences have 
not yet learned what may be called the 
personal preciousness and worth of the 
etching, for they have been too willing, in 
their ignorance, to yield this prerogative 
of appreciation to the connoisseur alone. 



ETCHING 



IT is only by a patient scrutiny of the 
works of the master etchers that one 
can learn the language of line. Its dic- 
tionary is written only in separate chap- 
ters, and these only on the best prints 
from the masters' plates. Rembrandt 
printed the most complete chapter; but 
modern etchers have added chapters of no 
mean value. Lalanne's is probably the 
most conscientious of all the chapters, and 
while conscientiousness is by no means 
essential to the success of an etcher — 
as at least one great name shows — still 
it is always the conscientious artist who 
best teaches the language of his art. 

Maxime Lalanne shows the conscien- 
tious perfection of method in etching and 
its unfailing effectiveness. For the very 



ETCHING 



59 



reason of the fulfillment of his under- 
taking, the adequate expression of his 
impression, his line-work is particularly 
interesting to watch. This sketch from 
the little French village of Nogent gives 
a very clear idea of the method which he 
employed in his use of line. Here in 
the foreground are the strong open lines, 
diminishing toward the background in 
exquisitely graded succession, to the fine 
delicate lines of the distance. In the sky 
is found the same careful gradation from 
the strong clear lines at the top of the 
plate to the tiny ones in the middle, as 
the sky nears the horizon. The horizontal 
treatment of the sky is a long approved 
practice with etchers. This gives an 
excellent opportunity to introduce the 
waved lines with admirable effect, for 
clouds. As the clouds recede in the dis- 
tance, how finely uncertain becomes their 
outline — a suggested mist of softest 
texture. This very perfection of sky 
gradation, which might otherwise prove 
its own monotony, has its variation in the 
few distinct horizontal lines just above 
the horizon, showing a frequent cloud 



6o 



A UDIENCES 



effect in perspective, as the clouds spread 
out lengthwise and apparently flatten to 
the eye. These lines give also an effect 
of approximate nearness, so that the tiny 
incomplete dashes below suggest to the 
eye a still greater distance of space and 
air far beyond. 

The treatment of foliage is perhaps one 
of the greatest tests of an etcher's skill 
in working from nature, and Lalanne has 
always something to teach in this direc- 
tion. On the left the foliage is banked 
together in great masses, the texture of 
the leafage chiefly shown by the irregu- 
larity of outline, and the added lines in the 
body of the foliage. One general tone is 
given to the whole group of trees, cover- 
ing as they do this side of the stream all 
along the water's edge. Sweeping lines 
in curves, each end of which bends slightly 
toward the horizon, give this unity of tone 
and texture, and the added lines in the 
body of the foliage, as they vary in direc- 
tion, suggest the variation of the mass. 

Compare the treatment of these trees 
with that of the trees to the right. Here, 
the branchwork is emphasized and the 



ETCHING 



6l 



leaves are quite distinct, particularly in 
the first large tree, where their delicacy is 
suggested by the open line work, showing 
clear spaces on the paper between the 
lines. Farther down on this side, this 
same effect of leafage is given to the 
overhanging branches of trees which are 
shown at intervals, lending an interest to 
these, quite distinct from that of the con- 
tinuous foliage mass of the opposite shore, 
so clearly reflected on the surface of this 
gently flowing stream. A slight sugges- 
tion of motion is given to the water, by 
the few horizontal lines which merge 
from the shading of the reflected foliage 
to cross partially the width of the stream 
itself. In this reflection, the delicacy 
given to its edges by the wide space of 
clear paper left inside the curved lines 
forming the outlines of the trees, is exqui- 
sitely expressed. 

This whole side of the stream is 
very pretty and quiet. It is in itself a 
"reverie," as Lalanne said that all etching 
should be. One does not care to find the 
exact shore line which marks the actual 
growth from its equally perfect reflec- 



62 



AUDIENCES 



tion. The whole mass of verdure, real 
and reflected, has caught the artist's eye 
and he has shown it just so. It is con- 
fessedly monotonous, in calm contrast to 
the life, movement and variety of the op- 
posite shore. Here the bank of the lit- 
tle stream, dropping down to the water's 
edge, where lie the boats, bends in a beau- 
tifully gentle curve, making a promenade 
whose fascination is sufficiently attested 
by the figures seated or walking. 

These figures add life and movement to 
the whole, as do the man fishing from 
the boat lying along the bank, and the 
one boat in mid stream with the two tiny 
lines from its prow proclaiming its move- 
ment. The walking figures are worth 
notice. The expression of action which 
Lalanne has put into these tiny bits of 
humanity, is interesting. Here, it is 
almost impossible to find the "how" of 
the artist's work. His success alone is 
all one can realize, for the wooden mon- 
umental stillness which many artists' 
small figures achieve, proves the difficulty 
of attaining in these any effect of real 
life or movement. Here as elsewhere 



ETCHING 



63 



the etcher must needs be "possessed " by 
his impression, and trust his needle to 
respond to his most intimate thought, as 
with some slight skill it assuredly will 
do; for there is no pictorial art where 
the exact and immediate thought is so 
truly and spontaneously represented as in 
etching. Well-adapted, as its devotees 
claim, rapidly to seize and imprint the 
artist's impression of nature, when one has 
learned with the line-masters to follow 
nature's moods in line, he will find that 
an etching can vividly present scenes 
which, but for this rapid art, would be 
transitory, and would elude even the 
colorist. 

It would be too much to claim for this 
plate of Lalanne's that the scene is one 
which would not have been particularly 
fitted to the painter, or that the etcher 
has caught much that would have eluded 
the painter. The etcher makes us look 
at nature from his point of view, and 
though we look at her here in half reverie, 
and not as vividly as in the passionate 
work of a Turner, a Haden, or a Whistler, 
still we find her beautiful; yes a continu- 



6 4 



A UDIENCES 



ous beauty, for it is this transfixing of 
nature for our perpetual vision that is 
the glory of the etcher's, as it is of the 
painter's art. 

Exquisite in detail and wonderfully 
harmonious in its composition, which is 
admirably strengthened by the architec- 
tural work on the right, this plate of 
Lalanne shows here, as always, a refine- 
ment of execution as well as of conception, 
which is most acceptable in any artist. 
We gain here a pleasant impression of 
this pretty little village with its towns- 
folk, themselves not untouched by the 
beauty of the stream which flows quite 
gently between its banks of closely grow- 
ing trees, and its walks which follow each 
bend of the water, till, lost in its own 
windings, one finds naught beyond but 
the far away calm of the sky. 



THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR 



AS the art languages progress in power, 
. each uses all the lower ones and 
interpenetrates them with some higher 
intent or purpose. The language of 
color does not separate itself from the 
lower languages, but uses and includes 
form, line, and action, in its own mani 
festation. Color is assuredly, if consid- 
ered by itself, a very subtle language, yet 
it is none the less definite. 

There is an idea prevailing broadly, 
that the Fine Arts as they increase in 
value, become indefinite, mystical and gen- 
erally unintelligible. As long as art has 
a form — and there could be no existence 
without form, — there must be a science 
underlying the mechanical structure of 
that form. The science underlying music 
5 



66 



A UDIENCES 



and poetry must be as definite as that upon 
which sculpture or painting is founded. 
The intellectual element, form, is fcf its 
very nature, always definite. There is 
never any definiteness lost in the higher 
arts ; but the emotional element gains 
in strength, becoming highest when the 
material through which it seeks utterance 
becomes nearest akin in quality to human 
emotion itself — as in music. 

Eyes are not enough to interpret the 
Language of Color. True, impressions of 
color come to the brain through the sense 
of sight, but he who runs may not always 
read, for the language of color, though 
definite, has a subtlety of meaning to the 
colorist which is rich in suggestiveness. 
As far as the understanding of this lan- 
guage goes, thousands of people might as 
well be born color-blind, for all the profit 
they derive from the use of their eyes. 

Form without color has its distinct prov- 
ince of power, as is seen in architec- 
ture and sculpture. Crude color the an- 
cients added to form, but in a subordinate 
way, the end being decoration, which is 
far from being the highest use of color. 



THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR 67 



Complexity in color-mixing, too, had its 
day among the R. A. 's of the world; but 
for artists to-day color is growing to be 
a more simple language, and the keynote 
of their theme is that "The sun paints 
true." Whether or no their audiences 
are altogether satisfied with the impres- 
sionists' use of that knowledge in the 
scales and five-finger exercises in paint 
so militant on our exhibition walls, the 
truth in their color-theories must be 
admitted. It is certainly significant that 
all the art-world should have gone sud- 
denly mad over one art-form, for impres- 
sionism is militant not alone in painted 
garb. One word to-day is made to in- 
clude all art-effort, — sketch. This one 
fact should teach us that the arts are not 
far apart, that they are expressive of the 
intellectual and moral breadth of the time. 

In the use of line and form, all move- 
ment, all expression, is suggested; but 
the fact of the artificiality of art forces 
itself into prominence. We never mis- 
take an etching for a landscape, and never 
a statue for a man, — unless the brain is 
intensely preoccupied or the statue is in 



68 



A UDIEXCES 



a dim light, which could prove nothing. 
In these the symbolism of art is always 
plainly visible, for line and form only 
timidly suggest the real. But painting, 
as the aestheticians assert, is distinctly 
an imitative art. It has the perfect face 
of nature, and therein lies the danger for 
the careless audience; because, in the 
very truth of its effects they see and 
seem to understand, and forget that they 
have perhaps not yet mastered the dic- 
tionary of color. It may still be to them 
an unknown tongue. 

Light and shade reaches its highest 
possibility when used by an artist like 
L'Hermitte, as in unpretentious char- 
coal he shows a flood of sunlight upon 
his men and sheep, the early green of 
spring, the soft color of sheep's wool, 
the subdued tints of cathedral interiors 
with the prayerful congregations, the glad 
brilliancy of the young faces, the dull 
colors of the older ones, wrinkled and 
drawn. This able Frenchman shows no 
more color in his painting than he gives 
in meager charcoal. Does this then lower 
color? Say rather it raises charcoal, for 



THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR 69 



in his work charcoal transcends itself, in 
that it suggests something out of its real 
range of power. 

If one "does the Cathedral Towns," — 
as everyone does who goes abroad, — the 
fact that the church has formulated color, 
though by an unwritten law, into a lan- 
guage full of symbolic meaning, forces 
itself vividly upon him. Cabalistic, mys- 
terious meanings have always hovered 
about certain colors; but after all is whis- 
pered of them, the fact is apparent that 
color is a language, formulated very 
much in the same way that French or 
German has come to be written, and of 
all the mysteries, there is not one but is 
plainly told on its face, — as any well- 
directed pair of eyes can learn to see. 

The three primary colors have among 
most nations had simple meanings, inti- 
mately connected with man and his sur- 
roundings. Red — the color of blood, 
of life — has always had an intensely 
human meaning. "Red for love," the 
old song says. It carries with it an ele- 
ment of emotion, of passion. Blue is the 
color of the sky, impenetrable. Men's 



AUDIENCES 



heads have always somehow been among 
the stars. Mentality is cold and ap- 
parently boundless. The heavens have 
always teased "us out of thought, as doth 
eternity/' and the blue vastness of the 
sky has come to attach itself also to men- 
tal depths, until it is commonly said, 
"blue is cold; it is an intellectual color, 
the color of mind." Then yellow, the 
flame-color. Among all peoples, legends 
and myths cluster about the gift of fire to 
man; but more can be read in the Prome- 
thean legend than the physical power of 
fire. It is the gift of gods to men, — the 
best gift, — and the aspiring flame con- 
nects itself inseparably with the soul- 
aspirations of men. It makes for itself 
a Pentecost. The Christian use of the 
color in church decorations at Eastertide 
is thus explained. 

This simple derivation of the three 
colors is apparent, but their variety in 
combination is infinite, and can be carried 
into a very complex study. The eyes 
like the ears in this generation are capa- 
ble of a nicety of color-distinction which 
would have been impossible centuries ago. 



THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR 7 1 



Combinations of tones are tolerated to- 
day which would have been harshest dis- 
cord to the ears of the last century, — nay, 
even were to Wagner's early critics. In 
color the same thing is true. 

Young painters are more than eager for 
the opportunity to watch some great artist 
at work, to see his handling of colors, his 
contrasts, his blendings. This opportun- 
ity comes rarely, but a greater is given 
every day they live. Would they but 
watch as breathlessly and intently when 
the Sun, our great colorist, is at work — 
what wealth of knowledge, what truth of 
color, what breadth of handling would be 
theirs ! When we learn to see on the 
desolate sun-dried prairies a play of 
colors as marvelous as we have been 
taught to look for on waters, we shall 
have gained much in color-knowledge. 
Color means more than red, blue, and yel- 
low. These are the colors of the painter, 
but color in its art-sense means sunlight 
and air in all their infinite gradations 
and interpenetrations, and red, blue, and 
yellow are the colors which must make 
these manifest; so with the painter the 



72 



A UDIEXCES 



audience must study these to appreciate 
their reproductive possibilities. We need 
a prism to study color, not a lorgnette 
or spyglass. When we have learned the 
language of color, then we can turn our 
lorgnettes upon exhibition walls with 
profit. 

The average picture-audience is inclined 
in one direction. A walk through a large 
and crowded gallery makes this plain. 
At all exhibitions, large or small, there 
are no pictures which win the enthusi- 
astic applause of the multitude as do 
the story-telling kind. At the World's 
Fair, for instance, one would rush along 
with the surging crowd, — past Millet's 
" Gleaners, " and Monet's and Manet's 
" impressions ; " past Isabey and Israels; 
past Gerome and Fromentin and Fortuny, 
Degas, Decamps, and Daubigny; past the 
poetic conceptions of Corot, the master- 
ful cattle-pieces of Rosa Bonheur, the 
touching " Song of the Lark" by Breton, 
and the exquisiteness of Alma Tadema. 
Suddenly the whole crowd would stop 
and the narrow passage seem hopelessly 
blocked. The heads were turned in one 



THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR 73 



direction; all was eagerness and intense 
interest. After many fruitless attempts, 
with much craning of neck and straining 
of tip-toes, one caught a glimpse of 
"Breaking Home Ties," and hurrying 
to elbow away, wondered why the world 
should go wild over this. 

Artists are not slow in letting us know 
their contempt for this sort of thing; but 
they often do so far from wisely. The 
fact is apparent that all audiences love a 
story. Though we may be connoisseurs, 
with a righteous contempt for story- 
telling art, still, if the " touch of nature " 
be true, we ourselves look or listen as 
eagerly as the most insatiable youngster. 
Stories in marble or color, in prose or 
verse or music, always find ready audi- 
ences, and consequently pay well. As 
long as this is the case, — and probably 
it will long be so, — we may be very sure 
that we as audience shall always have an 
abundance of stories thrust upon us, and 
it is our taste which must regulate the 
degree of excellence which these stories 
must maintain in order to hold their 
supremacy. Where the demand is high 



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in tone, we can be assured the supply will 
be so as well. 

Artists have hitherto been very chary 
about opening their portfolios to any one 
except the few who they were sure would 
understand. To day they are bolder, and 
their " studies" are numerous on exhibi- 
tion walls. " Picture-audiences will un- 
derstand/' they think to themselves. But, 
in walking through any gallery, one is 
sure to find many little stories, bad 
or indifferent, decorated with the mark 
" Sold/"' while works of infinitely superior 
merit are left to go back home, unless 
some connoisseur is generous. The rea- 
son for this is obvious when one recog- 
nizes that the primary object of art is 
man, and that the most human is always 
the most intelligible, and therefore the 
most interesting. It might be expected 
from this that at least character-studies 
in paint would interest every audience, 
but this is far from being the case. For 
who does not glance down a catalogue, 
past Portrait, — Portrait, — Portrait, un- 
til some more promising title catches 
the eye, and then start off "to hunt it 



THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR 75 



up. " If a familiar name is attached to 
the Portrait, curiosity or interest may 
lead to giving it a cursory glance; but 
the nameless portraits, — how few audi- 
ences can affect even a polite show of 
interest in them, — except as portraiture 
occasionally grows to be a fad with cer- 
tain audiences. The big oil-canvasses, 
the delicate water-colors, the exquisite 
miniatures or statuettes, all have their 
day; but the day passes, and only a per- 
sonal enthusiasm remains for them, apart 
from the fancy of the curious or the appre- 
ciation of the connoisseur. 

Characters interest people generally 
when they are unusual, or eccentric, or 
droll. This would seem contradictory 
from the widespread studies of common- 
place life which now prevail in literary 
fields. It is apt to be forgotten, how- 
ever, that our literary audiences have had 
wonderful advantages for training through 
the multiplicity of books. Extensive 
efforts have long been made to spread 
abroad good literature and to form good 
literary taste. People have read much 
before this influx of commonplace. Char- 



7 6 



A UDIENCES 



acter-studies — so titled — in paint, how- 
ever, are as a rule justly uninteresting 
because they express too little or no char- 
acter. It takes a great deal of clever- 
ness as well as artistic skill to make the 
commonplace interesting, — in paint far 
more than in words, for in words the 
interest is frequently dependent upon 
variety of situation, while in color this 
"to be continued" privilege is accorded 
the comic artist alone. 

To divide the color-field roughly for 
convenience, there is the Inanimate and 
the Animate; in the Inanimate, are Nature 
out-of-doors, and Still life in-doors; in 
the Animate, are animals and man. 

Nature out -of- doors. Audiences are all 
fairly sure of themselves as to landscapes 
and sea views. They have all seen such 
things often in reality, and in proportion 
as they are close or careless observers 
they are able to judge. If they have ob- 
served much they will be slow to judge; 
if little, perhaps bold enough to say, 
"That grass is too green, entirely too 
green ! " Certainly there is shown an 
abundance of green, very green grass these 



THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR 77 



days; but when one travels from north 
to south and from east to west, and sees 
that the sun paints differently in different 
climes, he will be prudent in mentioning 
greens. Plants and bushes and trees, 
lichens and moss, hills and mountains 
and valleys, rivers and lakes and oceans, 
rocks and sands and clays, dew and dust, 
— an audience must know much of all 
these before they have a great deal to say 
of nature-painting. More than these, 
what do we know of air? Atmosphere, 
atmosphere ! is the modern cry. An out- 
sider, thrown much among artists, with 
good reason remarked drolly : " One might 
think that the atmosphere had just been 
discovered." This is in fact actually true 
as far as painters are concerned, for it is 
not long since they began to paint air. 

A good sportsman's eye when the wind 
is blowing a gale and the leaves are rus- 
tling furiously, can still detect the slight- 
est unnatural movement among them 
which tells him at once where the squir- 
rel is hiding. Should our artists know 
less than the lad who shoulders a gun? 
A little woodman's craft surely is es- 



78 A UDIENCES 



sential to him who would paint woods. 
Painters of landscape have not alone to 
study outline and form in their coloring, 
as has been supposed. Action, motion, 
vibration, with them as with all artists, 
all scientists, and thinkers in every field, 
is the keynote of study. The impres- 
sionists set for themselves to represent 
not only the impression of form and color, 
but of motion as well, whether it be 
action of man or movement of atmosphere. 
This is a tremendous task, and, as may 
be imagined, there are few who succeed 
even in small degree. Monet's name 
stands out as one who has accomplished 
much. When one looks at a dozen or 
more of his pictures together, the breadth 
of the man's achievement and his simplic- 
ity of aim make an impression as strong 
as his pictures themselves. 

Detail of leaves and trees, the painters 
are fast giving over to the decorators. 
Who can accomplish anything better in 
this than the Japanese artists have already 
given us in their art, which is distinctly 
and purely decorative? Painters have 
more than enough to do in working with 



THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR 79 



action, — motion, — as it is manifest in 
color. The undertaking is enormous, and 
the accomplishment as yet but clumsy, 
for nature presents many problems yet 
unsolved by the colorist. Seen either by 
the eye of the calm dispassioned seer, o 
through the intense and throbbing subjec- 
tivity of the enrapt dreamer, nature is 
still unmanifest in paint. Surrounding 
man and looking up to him, she presents 
a certain pliantness to his inner feeling 
well suggested by such men as George 
Inness and A. H. Wyant in their very 
personal handling of her moods and fan- 
cies, for there is always with them a clear 
purpose to be expressed, some mood, 
some feeling, seemingly nature's, but no 
less their own. This too is an impres- 
sionism of the highest order. 

Still life in-doors. In in-door object- 
painting, a subordination of all mate- 
rial objects to man and his uses should 
be clearly and unmistakably expressed. 
Still life groups are interesting, not from 
their cleverness of imitation, but from 
their suggestiveness of use. The fiddle 
must have known tone, the bowl must 



8o 



A UDIENCES 



have capacity, the pantry amplitude and 
bounty. Beauty of decoration, useful- 
ness of purpose, combination, — all show 
the arrangement, the intellectual faculty 
of man the possessor, as the William 
Morris Decorative Crusade is endeavoring 
to promulgate. 

Animals. As to animal-painting: that 
animals have the power of expressing 
themselves according to their needs is 
undisputed, and these expressions, espe- 
cially among animals that live much with 
man, grow very human. Any one who 
doubts the forcefulness or definiteness 
of animal expressions has but to watch 
the rise and fall of a dog's tail to be 
more than convinced. In painting ani- 
mals, a knowledge of more than their 
habits is brought into use. The whole 
range of their lives opens a wide field 
of interest. The animals are quite safe, 
however, with their masters in paint, mar- 
ble, and bronze. It seems there is less 
" bread and butter art " among these 
artists than elsewhere, for no one can 
paint animals well who has not a little 
of the Rip Van Winkle in him. 



THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR 8 1 



Man. "The end of art is man." Few 
audiences linger long with nature or still 
life or even animals; the many are impa- 
tient of the end. It is the purely human 
that proves the strongest attraction in art, 
and it is the human element that is first 
in its appeal, and most permanently holds 
its audience. " In painting, what more 
can be said of man than in sculpture?" 
they ask, crying always like Oliver Twist, 
" More ! more ! " " More of ourselves ! 
What do you painter-fellows know of us ? 
Tell us more ! " 

Sculpture is a grand art. In its great- 
est achievements it partakes strongly of 
the heroic. In forceful simple emotions, 
it finds its freest development. More 
complex emotions and situations seek out 
the statuette and hint of the decorative. 
The Japanese and Chinese, the Russians, 
the French, and the Swiss, have seized 
almost every complexity of subject to 
work up in ivory, wood, clay, bronze, and 
iron. This seems to be a little avenue 
of art all to itself, apart from the great 
fields of art-workers, shady and pleasant, 
where patience and perseverance prevail, 
6 



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and the inspiration proves not too great 
for its out-working. 

Sculpture must necessarily be selective 
in its subjects, — here a figure, there a 
figure, — while painting can broaden its 
province by showing everything in a wide 
horizon. Here the artist can use the 
force of environment, so potent a factor 
in the coloring of nineteenth century 
thought. Here perspective comes into 
use, with all the rules that mechanical 
skill can devise for its powerful sway. 

As concerns group-work, it is not 
always successfully attempted in sculp- 
ture, and as a rule groups of more than 
three figures lose something of force, 
except as they are designed for some 
pediment or niche, and then, partak- 
ing strongly of the ornamental, they are 
likely in arrangement to be more decora- 
tive than dramatically effective. There 
are naturally exceptions to this rule. A 
group of six completely finished figures 
by Louis Gehlert, "The Struggle for 
Work," is strong in dramatic power. 
Much of the best statuary the world has 
known, however, is what is called special 



THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR 83 



statuary; but although these masterpieces 
gain in effect by architectural surround- 
ings, they are usually so strong in them- 
selves as to seem no less perfect when 
in front of the footlights on a pedestal 
without the scenery or stage accessories 
originally planned for them. 

Painting, like sculpture, is often selec- 
tive in its subjects; but in past years the 
conscientiousness of the painters forbade 
their leaving out aught of foreground, of 
background, or sky, and even took them 
into the region of angels, as did the old 
mystery plays. To-day, painters are bold 
enough to paint an upper layer of cloud 
strata alone, regardless of the sky or the 
earth beneath, except perhaps a peak or 
two of some mountain top, as does Vere- 
schagin, or they show a canvas of grass 
or water with but a few inches of sky at 
the horizon. Is it that conscientiousness 
in art is a thing of the past, or rather, 
that to-day painters are not so presump- 
tuous as to assume to know the ends of 
things, as in the old tales where the hero 
and the heroine were always " married in 
peace and lived happy ever after " ? 



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Bold as our nineteenth century is, it 
seldom professes to know the details of 
the ends of things. Artists lead up 
cleverly to the finale and then leave 
this with their audience. That artist is 
greatest who has the power to suggest so 
strongly to his audience as to compel 
them, individually and for themselves, 
to carry his suggestion to completion. 
Very clever chorus leaders frequently 
omit some crowning note of a musical 
phrase for which the modulation has pre- 
pared the ear of the listener, allowing the 
audience to complete the phrase. As 
audience, let us be wise enough to per- 
ceive and appreciate when an artist pays 
us so great a compliment. 

The painter, unlike the sculptor, has 
open to him nearly the whole gamut of 
human thought and emotion. Whether 
the intensely realistic representation of 
the horrible be approved or not, there is 
little of human suffering and sin that has 
not found a place on some unfortunate 
canvas. There used perhaps to be more 
of this than now since the "fire-and- 
brimstone sermons " have given way to 



THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR 85 



"The Greatest Thing in the World;" but 
there seems still a lurking remnant of 
fascination about the horrible left in 
humanity, and some artists still persist 
in giving it fuel for sustenance. Saint 
Paul's saying, "All things are lawful 
but all things are not expedient," is the 
gentle but potent curb which must be 
put on the wayward conception of the 
painter's imagination. 

Every emotion, like every musical 
phrase, has one great climax, and art is 
greatest when, in the expression of a 
thought or feeling, it shows the man just 
before the climax is reached. Even in 
the drama, — that most deluding of arts, 
— what would become of the heroes and 
heroines were it not for the drop-curtain 
which cuts the climax from view? It is 
the suggestiveness of greater things, — 
this falling just short of the climax, — that 
comprises the expediency of all the arts. 
The part which concerns each art is just 
how far short of the climax it is best to 
choose its subject. In sculpture it must 
be chosen a long way from the climax, in 
painting not quite so far, and in poetry 



86 



AUDIENCES 



and music we are taken almost to the 
height of the emotion. 

There is one difference in art-methods 
in sculpture and painting which is inter- 
esting to note. In a statue, the chief 
thought depends almost entirely upon 
the meaning of the figure itself, while 
in painting, with its wider resources, 
the strength of the principal figure fre- 
quently depends, not so much on the 
figure itself, as on the impression made 
by that figure on those who stand by. 
If this were not so, many attempts at 
Christs and Madonnas would be sorry 
efforts indeed. This method of present- 
ing a character through the impression 
made by him upon others is one of art's 
strongest methods. It is the method of 
Browning's "The Ring and the Book." 
It is often the method of the Gospel 
writers. 

Besides this, in figure grouping and 
in object grouping also in degree, the 
effect depends largely upon the dramatic 
arrangement of the scene. If artists 
would study stage-setting a little in the 
way it is studied in the Corned ie Fran- 



THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR 87 



gaise, they would save much labor and un- 
successful effort. If they would play their 
tragedies farther away from us toward the 
background, and their comedies nearer to 
us in the foreground, they would gain tre- 
mendously in power. 

There was a picture by the Norwegian 
artist, Skredsvig, exhibited in America in 
1893, which depended entirely upon its 
dramatic arrangement for its effect. This 
was in fact the only dramatic power which 
the large canvas showed. It was called 
"The Son of Man," and following the 
favorite modern tendency in the north of 
Europe to paint Our Lord as a man of 
to-day, clothed in modern dress and with 
modern surroundings, he shows us the 
peasants of the little Scandinavian town 
bringing their flowers and rugs to lay in 
the path, and their sick to be healed. The 
arrangement is so masterful, that when we 
see the slight figure with loosely hanging 
clothes, hat in hand, coming down the 
village path, a thrill of something like 
awe holds us, which could in no way be 
accounted for by the expression of the 
figure itself. When we analyze this, we 



88 



A UDIENCES 



see a rather shabby, forlorn- looking man 
with nothing remarkable, nothing un- 
usual about him. It is far from being 
so strong a figure as in Munkacsy's 
" Christ before Pilate," yet in this as 
well, the strength depends very largely 
upon the grouping. 

If one would appreciate figures singly, 
he must know something of the different 
degrees of expressiveness which different 
parts of the body possess. To learn this 
from individual observation and experi- 
ence would be a task beyond all but a 
few great men. Artists have some hints 
of it given in artistic anatomy; but one 
poor boy who began life as a china deco- 
rator has done more in this direction than 
all other artistic anatomists. The mis- 
represented and much abused Francois 
Delsarte studied faces and hands and 
torsos more diligently than any one but 
Michael Angelo ever studied them; and 
with more wonderful power of analysis 
and formulation than Angelo, he left the 
results of his formulations in definite 
form. If artists are afraid of the cavil 
over a name, it is their loss, and they can 



THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR 89 



ill afford to lose any opportunity for 
gaining a definite conception of man's 
expressions, as our picture galleries of 
to-day too glaringly show. Modern art is 
struggling toward a knowledge of expres- 
sion. It needs all the true help which it 
can find. 



PAINTING 



AR more is expected of color to-day 



-L than ever before. The time is fast 
going when a painter can satisfy his 
audience by daubing the invariable dark 
brown into his shadows, as if he were 
working in black and white. There are 
a few notable and noted exceptions to 
this, but these painters succeed in im- 
pressing their audiences only because as 
artists their grasp of the purpose of life, 
and their power to express men's thoughts 
and feelings, are so great as to over- 
shadow their archaic workmanship. 

When all that can be said is said about 
tones, values, light and shade, middle- 
ground and background, foreground and 
distance, one is still ignorant of the 
painting itself. If it be in reality the 





RINGING THE CHRISTMAS BELLS. 



PAINTING 



91 



expression of some worthy conception, it 
certainly deserves analysis beyond the 
mere facts of its workmanship. Tech- 
nique, after all, is very little, — it is always 
expression that proves an artist great. 
Was it not so with Raphael and all the 
great ones? 

Technique and expression — these are 
the two points of attack for each of the 
arts. 

In the painting, "Ringing the Christ- 
mas Bells/ 5 by Edwin H. Blashfield, 
look first at the mechanical work, — the 
lines, the colors and arrangement; and 
then at the expression, — the intention of 
the artist. The arched stonework which 
frames the angel-figures is built archi- 
tecturally, and not merely drawn, as is 
too often the case in color-work. Here 
a familiar old griffin greets us, and we are 
haunted with memories of some place, — 
we cannot tell where, until we chance to 
recall the old church of St. Nicholas at 
Blois with its weird menagerie of strange 
animals found in no land, but in the 
grotesque dream of some long-dead 
chiseler. 



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From the stonework the eye passes to 
the gray of the pigeons which form a flut- 
tering halo about the figures. As one of 
the bells swings in, the suction of the air 
draws the birds in after it. Mr. Blash- 
field, with all his ideality, has spared no 
pains of realism in noting this small com- 
monplace fact. With wings outspread, 
two pigeons float in after the great bell, 
and these call attention to this huge 
piece of metal, — as fine in its work- 
manship of weatherbeaten bell-metal as 
one could wish. In paintings, bells are 
swung in many ways with intentions more 
or less definite; but as these mighty bells 
swing forward and back the audience that 
looks must needs listen as well, — there is 
no choice, no indecision, their peal is 
direct, for they ring to us and for us as 
all Christmas notes have rung since 
first the Christ-child came to dwell with 
man. 

The management of lines and their 
arrangement in the picture manifest a 
refinement and an intellectuality too often 
lacking among painters. The span of 
the pigeons' wings in detail admirably 



PAINTING 



93 



accentuates the greater movement of the 
angels' wings. The framed effect given 
by the stonework, one bell swung far 
above, the other below, the strong, broad 
beam for support, all these lead up admir- 
ably to the climax of the three angel- 
figures, and in these the composition is 
very pleasing, — the pose of the side 
figures, slightly subordinated, the curved 
sweep of the wings inward beautifully 
balancing the outspread wings of the 
middle figure, at the same time giving 
this figure an unmistakable emphasis and 
power. 

Of the color: the one central mass 
which is the climax of the whole is the 
figure group where the high light falls 
upon the pure white of the angels' robes. 
In the canvas itself the effect of shadows 
in white is skilfully obtained by a work- 
ing in of greens and purples; the har- 
mony of the flesh and hair coloring is 
satisfying, and the subordination of the 
gray of the stone and wood and the green 
of the bells is very effective, and does 
not detract in the least from the central 
coloring. 



94 



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In analyzing a painting like this, where 
the expression of the figures is so over- 
mastering, it is well to look first at these 
subordinate features of color, line, and 
arrangement, if one expects to see them 
at all, lest the primary points of interest 
prove so absorbing as to obliterate the 
lesser points. The effect which these 
produce upon artists who have more than 
a superficial understanding of man and 
his life-needs, is exceptional. There is 
a certain breadth — an impersonality 
— about these angels which is rarely 
attempted or attained. They are as far 
removed from the artist's model as any- 
thing one can imagine. There is not 
one touch of "the earth, earthy" about 
them ; no heaviness and cumbersomeness 
of flesh. Almost "spirit and thin air," 
they have still a certain realness which 
makes them truly great. 

The movement of the figures expresses 
great joy. Action here is at an exultant 
climax. In the middle figure the strong 
movement from the shoulder shows not 
only the vigor of action but a certain joy 
in action, which is more definitely indi- 



PAINTING 



95 



cated by the vitality shown in the hands, 
as the bases of the palms press against 
the great bell, and by the head as it is 
thrown very high and a little back in 
exultation. Watch a face in great joy 
sometime, and notice how the eyes fairly 
start from the head, — a fact which the 
artist here has not overlooked. 

The play of the muscles of the torso 
is fine. Notice how they are drawn taut 
over the ribs. They are strong and alert, 
and the lines are all clear and clean. 
The torso alone shows the noble emotion 
of the whole, were there nothing else to 
indicate it. One frequently finds this 
superb play of the torso muscles in sculp- 
ture; but whether painters do not take 
pains to obtain as good models as the 
sculptors do, one somehow rarely sees 
anything so fine in paint. Painters as 
a rule busy themselves too much with 
color, and do not make the effort neces- 
sary to understand action. 

The heads are beautifully done and very 
expressive. The sweetness of the head 
slightly in profile forms a contrast with 
the positive joy of the prominent figure, 



9 6 



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and to the eager exaltation of the figure 
opposite. It strikes a quiet note of peace 
in the very midst of this intense activity. 
The head of the middle figure is superb, 
thrown erect as it is, in an ecstasy of joy, 
the hair tossed a little off the beautiful 
forehead. How glorious is this angel, 
— for clearly "The light of dawn upon 
his brows was laid!" 

Here is a purely simple expression 
of joy. It has the significance of Beet- 
hoven's Hymn to Joy theme in the 
Ninth Symphony. It stands for joy, 
just as Mr. Blashfield's "Angel with the 
Flaming Sword " stands for the positive 
irrevocableness of God's decree, as his 
" Improvisatrice," for a beautiful dream 
of melody, as his " Education of a 
Prince" for the regalness of royalty. It 
is seldom one finds expressions so simple 
and perfect. The highest art is, after 
all, simple. Choosing in this way, a 
single emotion to be embodied lends 
great dignity to the subject, notwith- 
standing any coloring of definiteness 
which may seem to limit it in its mani- 
festation. 



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97 



Luckily for art there are always painters 
with opposing opinions, and those who 
find such paintings as "The Christmas 
Bells " beautiful, but only a "fairy- 
tale/' find the strongest meaning in 
Israels' peasants with their knotted, work- 
worn hands, and wrinkled, care and toil 
worn faces. The world likes the "fairy- 
tales " best, in spite of the artists and 
their realism. Aladdin, the poor little 
boy, has not much interest for us until 
he finds the magic lamp. To make the 
peasants mean more than mere work- 
ridden folk, "well done, true to life," one 
must have passed by their way. One 
must have seen as Millet saw. " I see 
very well the aureole of the dandelions ; 
and the sun also, far down there behind 
the hills, flinging his glory upon the 
clouds. But not alone that — I see in the 
plains the smoke of the tired horses at 
the plough, or, on a stony-hearted spot of 
ground, a back-broken man trying to raise 
himself upright for a moment to breathe. 
The tragedy is surrounded by glories — 
that is no invention of mine." 

Man has a stronger meaning to Jean 
7 



9 8 



A UDIEXCES 



Frangois Millet than nature could ever 
have, but he seldom looks beyond the 
pathos of man and his painful toil. 
There is sorrow enough, God knows, 
much foolish grieving. When will men 
put away the slavery of labor and travail, 
and learn the joy of work? 



THE LANGUAGE OF WORD 



ORD Language greets its audi- 



ence with a certain familiarity. 



They feel here a sense of ownership, of 
possession, a mastery. They may handle 
lines clumsily, may know naught of mould- 
ing and less of color; but of words they 
are sure. So they are, but only in degree. 
There has always been an effort to create 
good literary taste, but there is still a 
mistake at the bottom of the matter. 
The old bards and their eager listen- 
ers, yes, even the meister-singers, and 
the minne-singers, and the troubadours, 
caught more of the reality of literature 
than the half-blind, spectacled book-worm 
of to-day. 

We have learned to read with our eyes, 
when we should have learned with our 




IOO 



A UDIENCES 



ears. The discordant, unreadable sen- 
tences that force themselves too often 
into prominence, are never written by 
men with ears trained to a fine distinc- 
tion and knowledge of sound. Words are 
only signs for sounds, as notes in music 
are, no more, no less, save that, — unlike 
the inorganic note, — words in their struc- 
ture are organic, and show the evolu- 
tion of their making, or the desolation 
of their marring. "Rare Ben Jonson " 
wrote centuries ago in his grammar of 
the English Language, that "the writing 
of it (language) was but an accident." 
Scientists tell us that words, though 
taken into the brain through the eye, are 
there recorded as impressions of sound 
and not of sight, and our own youthful 
struggles as we spelled out our c-a-t, 
should have taught us how words are 
made. But somehow all this has had 
little effect, and men and women keep on 
with their eye-reading, while they might 
as well be deaf-mutes as far as their 
appreciation of Word Language is con- 
cerned. 

Take a parallel case. Because an 



THE LANGUAGE OF WORD 10 1 



orchestra leader has acquired the ability 
to pick up a score of one of Beethoven's 
symphonies, for example, and with his 
eyes follow the parts assigned to the 
flutes, to the strings, to the brass and the 
drums, and by an effort of memory con- 
ceive an impression of what the sound of 
the whole would be, does it follow that 
music is an art to be read by the eye? 
Assuredly not; and no more does it fol- 
low, from the fact that every person of 
moderate education has acquired the men- 
tal ability to gain impressions of sounds 
through the reading of a printed page, 
that this eye-reading forces literature to 
appeal to the eye alone. 

Literature as an art uses, as its mate- 
rial for construction, words which are in 
reality articulated and enunciated sounds. 
For literature there must be therefore 
a hearing audience. The arts as they 
advance in order become more aggressive, 
and though gaining in their resources, 
still retain all the powers of utterance 
which the lower arts possess. Architec- 
ture claims co-ordination and the man- 
agement and the shaping of material into 



102 



A UDIENCES 



form. Sculpture claims all this, and adds 
the meaning of action. Painting keeps 
the co-ordination, composition, and form 
of architecture, the action of sculpture, 
and adds color. Music adds tone to 
these, and poetry claims all. So in lit- 
erature — as will be shown later — there 
is an appeal to the eye in line, form, and 
action, as there is of color and music to 
the ear. 

Every literary audience divides itself, 
either affectedly or sincerely, one half 
clamoring for prose, the other half for 
poetry. In considering the Art Lan- 
guages it must not be forgotten that in 
art, form is always present. There must 
always be structure, and structure can be 
considered from a purely scientific point 
of view. When literature is considered 
scientifically, it is found that prose is 
merely a wild variety of verse, and 
because verse has a scientific, mechani- 
cal structure, poetry is all that concerns 
us here. Some audiences are consider- 
ably shocked at this aggressive way of 
including prose in verse and calling it 
"merely a wild variety of verse;" but 



THE LANGUAGE OF WORD 103 



they can always be reasoned into it, and 
the fact remains that they cannot reason 
themselves out. 

It has been said that consonants are the 
bones of language, vowels its flesh and 
blood. In the making of verse, vowels 
and consonants play a structural part as 
well as words, sentences, and thoughts. 
Thoughts form the framework upon which 
the verse-structure is built. Its beams 
arch over the void of space, which is 
silent in its lack of intent, until the 
mind conceives a structure, and thought 
becomes definite. The phrasing of the 
words covers this framework of thought, 
and sounds ornament the whole. In 
architecture, ornament was found to be 
of great importance; in fact, as an art, 
architecture puts forth ornament as its 
most characteristic achievement. Even 
beyond the greatness of ornament in 
architecture is the sound-ornamentation 
of verse. Its contrasts, its repetitions, 
its combinations, change in never-ending 
beauty and variety. There is a strong 
analogy between ornament in verse, as 
rhyme and alliteration, and ornament in 



io4 



A UDIENCES 



architecture, which may be of interest to 
the curious. 

So verse comes to be known with its 
framework, its covering, and its ornament, 
and so the poet is known as architect. 
He is more than architect, however, for 
an architect creates merely the design for 
the contractor and laborers to carry out, 
while the poet, having created his plan, 
must be both contractor and laborer, and 
himself work out the design to its comple- 
tion, for he is perforce a handicraftsman. 

Some people have taken pains to let us 
know that much excellent verse has been 
written in a planless, purposeless way. 
So have good houses been built without 
an architect's plan; but this does not 
tend to do away with the need of plan 
for either poet or architect. Plans some- 
times do not become consciously apparent 
except in the process of execution. Good 
talkers frequently speak out a thought 
which crystallizes itself in its utterance 
and is as much a surprise to speaker as 
to listener. It is not unpremeditation 
of plan, but lack of plan that is to be 
deplored, and which constantly forces 



THE LANGUAGE OF WORD 105 



itself upon us in our hosts of miserable 
rhymesters. There is one cause at the 
bottom of it all, and that is ignorance, — 
ignorance of the existence of a science 
underlying the making of verse. 

There are special schools to train ar- 
chitects, special schools to train sculptors 
and painters, special schools to train 
musicians and composers; where is the 
school to train poets ? Is it not strange 
that this has not occurred to the intelli- 
gent world ? Is it not strange that poetry 
should be the only art for which a special 
training is deemed unnecessary? Yet 
the world has learned by heart the say- 
ing that "good poets are made as well 
as born. " The world helps every art- 
worker but the poet, and him it leaves to 
struggle alone, gathering such tools as 
he can find, dropped half-worn and often 
abused from older poets, and striving with 
a shameful little bundle of rhetorical 
metre to shape his message for mankind. 
Wiser heads, older heads, do not even 
take the pains to tell him what he ought 
to learn. They tell an architect to study 
mechanical strains, the tensile strength 



io6 



A UDIENCES 



of wood and stone, of iron and steel. 
Should they not tell a poet to study the 
tensile strength of his material as well, 
the strength of vowels and consonants, of 
syllables and words, of phrases, sentences, 
and paragraphs ? Sound is a far more 
intricate study than iron and stone, and 
to know the quality of his material for 
use and beauty is as essential to the poet 
as to the architect. 

Because words are used with a certain 
definiteness in speech, to speak well is con- 
sidered sufficient mastery of language for 
a poet; but music is used too with equally 
definite purpose in speech, yet never has 
this been considered sufficient training 
for a singer. This last point has been 
so little considered that to make it clearer 
are inserted, by way of parenthesis, a few 
extracts from a lecture given in the As- 
sembly Room of the Woman's Building, 
at the World's Fair in 1893, on — 

Music in Speech. 

Music implies an instrument. In speech 
the instrument is human ; it is a living 
instrument. 



THE LANGUAGE OF WORD 107 



If one should stand before a singing- 
master and say, " I wish to sing. Tell 
me, where is the instrument of song?" 
he would undoubtedly say, " Here, in your 
throat of course/' or perhaps he might 
add, "and your lungs and head." 

If one should take a violin to a violin- 
ist, and say, " I wish to play. Show me 
what part of this violin is the instru- 
ment," there could be but one answer. 
"Every fibre of the wood, each bit of 
glue and varnish, add to the tone, and 
determine its quality. The whole violin 
is the instrument." The fact that the 
sound is made by drawing the bow across 
the strings in no way determines the 
instrument, as is very easily proved by 
playing on some well-stretched strings 
with no resonating body supporting them. 
The tone is inconceivably mean and thin 
compared with the full, rich voice of the 
violin. 

As the unsurpassable materials of the 
violins of the old masters mark their 
instruments as superb in tone, so the 
quality of the materials in the human 
instrument determines its tone value. 



io8 



A UDIENCES 



As the varnish is to the violin, so is the 
skin to the human instrument; and the 
wood is like the muscles and bones, as 
these shape the air cavities for resonance 
of tone, and as they vibrate, reinforcing 
the tone. 

As the bow drawn across the violin 
strings sets them in motion in longer or 
shorter sections according to the pitch of 
the note, so the breath sent from the 
lungs passes across the vocal cords in 
the larynx, and sets them vibrating in 
longer or shorter sections according to 
pitch. The vocal apparatus, as an in- 
strument, does not belong to the violin 
class assuredly, but is a reed instrument 
of the hautboy class, though the violin 
serves for illustration. 

There is a marvelous power which this 
human instrument possesses — living and 
breathing as it is — which gives it a supe- 
riority over every possible mechanical 
contrivance of wood, brass, or catgut. 
The player being inseparable from his 
instrument can control at will both its 
shape, its outline, and its material. 

If we watch the evolution of the violin 



THE LANGUAGE OF WORD log 



we shall find that it has grown through 
many stages, from a crude unmanageable 
instrument, to the shapely creature we 
know and see it to-day, and we know that 
the least change in its undulating form 
or the slightest difference in the form 
and placing of the s-shaped openings on 
its front, materially alters its tone qual- 
ity. Helmholtz tells us that in all in- 
struments of beautiful tone, when divided 
perpendicularly and horizontally, the cor- 
responding opposite sections and divi- 
sions will be found to be uniform in 
shape. How few human instruments 
could undergo this test ! 

Let us consider the human instrument 
just a minute. Its materials of skin and 
flesh, blood and bone, determine its qual- 
ity. Its outline, so various and flexible, 
gives form to the instrument and to the 
tone as well. Where we find a flabby, 
formless instrument, we have also a 
flabby, unshapen tone. We know that 
there are some exceptions to this rule, 
however, for we know great song artists 
whose instruments seem hopelessly shape- 
less, that is, from the outside; but as 



I IO 



A UDIENCES 



artists, we always find that they have 
gained an exceptional control over the 
inner organs most intimately connected 
with tone-production, which in a man- 
ner counteracts the outer shapelessness 
of their instruments. Nevertheless, this 
gives no excuse for physical imperfec- 
tions. The master hand can always 
transcend the most unworthy instru- 
ment. 

Let us consider now the way in which 
the materials of this human instrument 
mar its beauty of tone otherwise than by 
the actual outer shape which they give to 
the instrument itself. In an organism 
where the nerves are fairly tied into 
knots, and the flesh fibres form bunches 
and knots of muscle, and so not only stop 
the flow of the vital nerve force, but 
materially impede, and sometimes almost 
stop, the circulation of the blood, — such 
imperfections of the instrument cause the 
same impure and unhealthy tones which 
knots, cracks, and blemishes cause in the 
wood of the violin, and even greater loss 
in purity of tone than the latter could 
possibly cause. 



THE LANGUAGE OF WORD III 



The perfecting of the human instru- 
ment is not alone the beginning for the 
possibility of any pure, or even good tone 
in song and speech; but it is also the 
absolute law and appealing need of health, 
and this demand is the paramount life 
necessity of all human kind, and its sat- 
isfaction lies easily within the power of 
each of us. 

Now that we have considered the struc- 
ture of this instrument, through which 
song and speech are vibrantly formed, let 
us distinguish the difference in its use in 
song and in speech. 

Without going into the science of 
sound, let us take for granted that we can 
all distinguish immediately the difference 
between a musical sound and noise. 

The needs of every-day conversation do 
not place quite the same demands upon 
the voice in speech as is demanded of 
speech when it becomes the art-language 
of the poet, because in every-day life our 
emotions rarely rise to that passional 
height which belongs distinctly to the 



I 12 



A UDIENCES 



realm of poetry; but as we are consider- 
ing the use of the voice in the art of song, 
we must use for comparison the use of 
the voice in the art of speech, that is, in 
poetry. 

If we sift the matter to the bottom 
we find just this one simple difference 
between the use of the instrument in 
song and in speech. In song we use an 
arbitrary, conventional scale, the octave 
on the piano, composed of thirteen half- 
tones; while in speech, ■ — the human ear 
when trained being able to distinguish 
nine distinct tones in the space of every 
whole tone on the piano, — we use all the 
intermediate tones in speech-inflections 
rather than confine the voice to prolonged 
single tones as in song. 

At first this distinction seems to sepa- 
rate the two arts of song and speech ; but 
in reality the distinction itself tends to 
disappear in different forms of the two 
arts. For in lyric poetry the use of the 
voice approaches song very nearly, while 
in dramatic singing the use of the voice 
— as it brings in the color-shadings of 



THE LANGUAGE OF WORD 1 13 



the tiny intermediate tones — approaches 
very nearly to speech. So we come at 
last to the realization that the difference 
between the use of the voice in song and 
its use in speech is merely an arbitrary 
difference, which, in extreme examples of 
either, entirely disappears, and proves 
their unity. The range of the voice is 
the same, the consideration of pitch is 
the same, save that speech in its more 
complex and formless melodies presents 
a complication of which song, in its con- 
ventionalized scale, takes no account. 

With these melodies — the tunes of 
speech — we are all familiar, and not 
only familiar, but we never fail to grasp 
from them a definite meaning. When we 
hear, for instance, a child say with all 
the energy of scorn, " Oh, I just love that 
girl ! " our ears never fail to carry to our 
understanding the message of hate and 
scorn which the tune of the voice indi- 
cates, while the words speak their unin- 
tended message of love. 

Just a few words about the significance 
of the voice in speech and song. Take a 
8 



114 



A UDIEXCES 



note on the piano — say middle C; sound 
it with the voice. In it we find, if we 
analyze the acoustics of tone, one funda- 
mental tone and several overtones. Now 
the overtones give the quality to the voice. 
Their variety and distinctive peculiari- 
ties not only distinguish one person's 
voice from another's, but in song and 
speech they give color to the sound, 
which is just as definite and as readily 
perceived by the ear as the colors which 
the painter uses are perceptible to the 
eve. 

(This last is of course apparent only in 
actual illustration in tone, but will be 
suggested in following color in its art- 
use in poetry when we come to consider 
some single poem.) 

It is already plain that poetry has an 
architectural construction and therefore 
as an art includes all that is of interest 
in the Fine Art of Building. Whatever 
appeals to us in architecture, can be fol- 
lowed with as great profit as well as 
pleasure, in verse-making. More than 
this, it has been found that words, being 



THE LANGUAGE OF WORD 115 



mere symbols of sound, and sound includ- 
ing music and color, poetry uses both 
music and color in its expression. The 
color will be followed more in detail 
later, for it is particularly interesting. 

There is just one of the arts which 
has not yet been claimed, — sculpture. 
It was found that sculpture dealt with 
action. Sculpture takes the result of an 
action and imprisons it, permanent, for- 
ever. The strength or the weakness of 
the art lies in its ability or failure to 
give us an instantaneous impression, as 
in painting or in architecture. Sculpture 
in itself can show the happening of just 
one moment of time, — it is a permanent 
art. The sculptor, however, is compara- 
tively great as he has the ability to awaken 
in his audience a conception of the chain of 
circumstances which led to his sculptured 
moment and the climax which should grow 
out of it. This a sculptor can do, and in 
so doing he lifts his work above that of 
the gravestone chiseler and the artisan. 
But sculpture at its best can only timidly 
suggest the growth and culmination of a 
thought or feeling; architecture suggests 



n6 



A UDIENCES 



it less, painting more; but poetry and 
music do more than suggest, — they follow 
out the very development of the thought 
in time and space, just as its creator con- 
ceived it, and in this lies the supremacy 
of these higher arts. The permanent plas- 
tic arts imprison or crystallize thoughts and 
feelings; the interpretative arts develop 
them. 

This development of thought is in it- 
self an action because it is active, and 
requires time for its out-working; but 
there is a more apparent demonstration 
of action which allies poetry and sculp- 
ture, — nay, which includes sculpture in 
poetry. 

Action, in its simple art-sense, deals 
with the bodily movements of man as he 
uses them to supplement his words in 
order to express fully his thoughts and 
feelings. If one tries to say something 
sensible to somebody without moving a 
single muscle, — feet and hands quiet, 
and every muscle of the face perfectly 
still, except those that are necessary for 
pronunciation, — he will soon find what 
an impossible and idiotic task he has set 



THE LANGUAGE OF WORD 11 7 



for himself; and yet some persons are 
thoughtless enough to say that they never 
use gestures. These are usually persons 
who have acquired a certain suppression 
of self, caused by some incident or 
environment far back in their lives, and 
flatter themselves that they have learned 
self-control. They keep their bodies 
very still and their faces wonderfully so ; 
but watch the play of the tiny muscles 
about the eyes and mouth, and the occa- 
sional moving of the wrists and fingers. 
These small elliptical gestures reveal 
more in action than they might wish to 
have known, and their very self-suppres- 
sion becomes, in spite of themselves, a 
self-revelation. 

Action is necessary to expression as 
well as to locomotion, this much must 
be adrnitted. That action in itself is a 
clearly intelligible language, we are made 
aware in the child-delighting Pierrot, and 
in the present interest in pantomime on 
the French stage, — that foster-mother of 
dramatic art. In America this has not 
forcibly come to us yet. Steele Mackaye 
hoped to show it in his " Spectatorium," 



n8 



A UDIENCES 



the deplorable failure of which caused his 
death. 

Narrative and dramatic poetry deal 
primarily with action, — that is plain; 
and contemplative poetry deals with the 
growth, development, attainment of a 
thought, which is in itself a form of ac- 
tion. There is one kind of poetry, how- 
ever, which deals with action less than 
any other, that is, nature description. But 
nature description is not poetry's best 
field; the painter rightly claims this as his 
strength. Look at the unturned pages of 
nature descriptions in our poets and see 
the well-thumbed leaves of narrative or 
distinctly human poetry, — poetry which is 
self-expressive and personal. Landscape- 
art per se belongs to the painter. He 
best can give form to trees, and fields, 
and waters; but there is a realization of 
the spirit of nature which men like Inness 
and Corot with all their strength can only 
suggest, but which poets, like Lanier, and 
musicians, like Beethoven and Wagner, 
can fully attain. 

Take Sidney Lanier's "Sunrise from 
the Marshes of Glynn," and catch the 



THE LANGUAGE OF WORD 119 



wonderful spirit of nature which he ideal- 
izes and raises up to meet the spirit of 
man. In the very beginning we feel it 
brooding, — 

" In my sleep I was fain ot their fellowship, fain 
Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main. 
The little green leaves would not let me alone in my 
sleep ; 

Up-breathed from the marshes, a message of range 
and of sweep, 

Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drift- 
ing, 

Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting, 
Came to the gates of sleep." 

Hear Beethoven's great Pastoral Sym- 
phony and you will know the spirit of 
nature better than you ever dreamed of 
her before. Listen to Wagner's "Hymn 
to the Evening Star" in " Tannhauser," 
and feel the nature spirit in it. It is mar- 
velous to think that this man with only a 
few poor notes has so put them together 
as to give a never-failing impression of air 
and space, of evening sky and the tremu- 
lous first star, and the space and air and 
love in the soul of man — Hindu-like — 
Platonic ! 



POETRY 



IN A GONDOLA 

"Songs of Italy." — Joaquin Miller 
I 

'T was night in Venice. Then down to the tide, 

Where a tall and a shadowy gondolier 

Leaned on his oar, like a lifted spear : — 

'T was night in Venice ; then side by side 

We sat in his boat. Then oar a-trip 

On the black boat's keel, then dip and dip ; — 

These boatmen should build their boats more wide, 

For we were together, and side by side. 

II 

The sea it was level as seas of light, 

As still as the light ere a hand was laid 

To the making of lands, or the seas were made. 

'T was fond as a bride on her bridal night 

When a great love swells in her soul like a sea, 

And makes her but less than divinity. 

'T was night, — The soul of the day, I wis : 

A woman's face hiding from her first kiss. 



POETRY 



121 



III 

'T was night in Venice. On o'er the tide — 
These boats they are narrow as they can be, 
These crafts they are narrow enough, and we, 
To balance the boat, sat side by side — 
Out under the arch of the Bridge of Sighs, 
On under the arch of the star-sown skies : 
We two were together on the Adrian Sea, — 
The one fair woman of the world to me. 

IV 

These narrow built boats, they rock when at sea, 

And they make one afraid. So she leaned to me ; 

And that is the reason alone there fell 

Such golden folds of abundant hair 

Down over my shoulder, as we sat there. 

These boatmen should build their boats more wide, 

Wider for lovers ; as wide — Ah, well ! 

But who is the rascal to kiss, and tell ? 

Venice, 1874. 

Architecture in Poetry 

This little poem is built very beauti- 
fully, its verse-making is nearly perfect. 
Its builder is a good workman, skilled in 
his art, master of his craft. Follow first 
his beams of thought ; see how he lays 
them, how joins and uprears the strength 
of his structure, so that his after-thought 
of ornament prove not meaningless and 
vain. 



122 



A UDIENCES 



Being a song, the structure is simple 
as possible. The title, "In a Gondola," 
gives the place, it locates the structure 
immediately; the first stanza shows the 
surroundings; the very first rhyme — 
"tide" with "side by side" — announces 
the romantic purpose of the song, and the 
opening words, "'Twas night," reveal 
the way in which the plans are to be 
carried out, the treatment of the motif. 
This builder is notably strong in his 
power of climax, so for the height of his 
achievement one must look to the climax 
of his plan, — that climax which in lyric 
poetry is found at the very end of the 
poem, — for here the builder brings in the 
human element, the dramatic touch that 
gives character and intent to the whole 
melody of the song, — 

" Wider for lovers ; as wide — Ah, well ! 
But who is the rascal to kiss, and tell ? " 

These last lines he brings in to crown 
his work, as the architect crowns his 
building with some golden dome, superb 
in curve, glorious in height ; but their 
force will be better realized when follow- 
ing out his plan consecutively. 



POETRY 



123 



The first stanza of the poem gives 
the foundation. In this stanza the first 
statement of the idea is fully made, 
as some composer might introduce his 
full theme in the first melodic move- 
ment. The completeness of this first 
statement of the thought will be more 
apparent when watching the action of 
the poem. 

The second stanza broadens out into 
a gloriously wide floor-space. There are 
touches here of thought as all-embracing 
— within its distinctly human zone — as 
in any of the grand, serious poems of our 
language. See how the description keeps 
us just hovering over the surface of the 
waters, the " level as seas of light " runs 
all through it, and we are lifted no.higher 
in the building, until, in the third stanza, 
we are taken " out under the arch of the 
star-sown skies." 

Notice in passing that Joaquin Miller 
has very beautifully mingled his touches 
of sentiment with comedy fun of the vers- 
de-socitie kind, as, — 

" and we, 

To balance the boat, sat side by side " — 



124 



A UDIENCES 



with thoughts that have some of the 
breadth of the sublime. This might be 
called distinctly a vers-de-societe lyric, 
and yet very different is it in tone from 
the conventionality, or worse, the malice 
of sentiment, — the lack of real respect 
and deep feeling, — which is found in 
Horace, and later in Matthew Prior and 
his eighteenth century contemporaries. 
We ought to be hopeful for our modern 
gay society verse. Its treatment of senti- 
ment is far truer than ever before. 

" We two were together on the Adrian Sea, — 
The one fair woman of the world to me." 

The ending of this third stanza is made 
to hold much of deep feeling. The 
romance of the theme asserts itself, and 
the lesser thought-beams become insigni- 
ficant in comparison. The romance spans 
dome-like a little room-space all its own, 
— silent and aware. 

It is excellent art which mixes feeling 
and fun to the detriment of neither, and 
this is well done as we go on to the last 
stanza. We have had nothing of the 
woman as yet, and the structural thought 



POETRY 



125 



hastens on to its climax, telling us of her 
in the one masterly line, — 

" Such golden folds of abundant hair " 

this is all. The poet suggests the sweep- 
ing curve that spans the arch, and his 
audience is left to fill in the detail of the 
thought. 

He is very clever in his management 
of the whole structure, for he centres our 
interest on the woman, tantalizes us by 
the one impression of her which he gives, 
and then leaves us to build the tower of 
climax ourselves. 

"As wide," — just as he allures us 
with expectancy, and we suspend thought 
to catch the beauty of some crowning 
phrase, he gayly breaks off — 

" Ah, well ! 
But who is the rascal to kiss, and tell ? 99 

Without going into the structure of lan- 
guage, of tones, or even of words, which 
would be essential in making a scien- 
tific analysis of verse-building, it will 
be sufficient just to glance at the orna- 
ment, and then pass on to the thoughts 



126 



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suggested by the chiseling and the pig- 
ments. From an architectural point of 
view verse-ornaments are of various kinds ; 
but it will be enough to consider only 
the simple ones of rhyme and allitera- 
tion. Few poets take the pains to place 
their verse-ornaments properly and har- 
moniously, and to polish them acceptably. 
The same laxity can be complained of 
in architects as well. Workmanship in 
ornamentation can be too minute and too 
troublously painstaking, but never too 
perfect. Sometimes a rhyme left roughly 
chiseled — a little uncouth and clumsy — 
can be used to heighten the effect of ex- 
pression, as in some of Browning's char- 
acter studies ; but generally we prefer the 
fine quality of workmanship which a poet 
like Shakespeare presents. 

The simple verse-ornaments which this 
poem boasts are easily apparent, the 
rhymes "tide" and "side," "gondolier" 
and "spear," "trip" and "dip," "wide" 
and "side;" the alliterations are pretty, 
— the /, in "Zeaned on his oar /ike a /ifted 
spear," the b, in "These boatmen should 
^uild their ^oats more wide," and the s in 



POETRY 



127 



" sdX ride by ride." It is easy enough to 
follow them at choice; and though we 
remember that the poet's own ear is his 
only law, it can still be demanded of him 
that he use the very best sound for the 
case. Our English is a rich material, 
and we as audience should be satisfied 
with nothing less than the best rhyme 
and the best alliteration. 

Perhaps the most taking of verse- 
ornaments is the refrain, the repetition. 
We love it in songs, and lyric poetry 
abounds in it. The "side by side " cer- 
tainly keeps our thought from wander- 
ing from the theme, and the balancing 
of the opening sentences of the first and 
third stanzas is wholly satisfying, " 'T was 
night in Venice. " 

There is another phase of ornament 
study in the grammatical construction, 
which in poetry is closely akin to the 
development of a theme in music, with 
its subordinate and intricate phrasings; 
but this is largely technical, and tech- 
nique — which delights the connoisseur 
and pleases the artist — wearies, perhaps, 
his audience. 



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Sculpture in Poetry 

As was suggested in considering action 
as the province of sculpture, the analysis 
might become too complex were we to 
hover long about rhythm, — that loadstone 
of modern thought, artistic and scientific. 
Being a little blind, therefore, and over- 
looking the atoms and all their possibili- 
ties of intricate combination, we shall 
choose to see only the movement of peo- 
ple and great things. 

In a lyric, little action is naturally 
expected ; but there is enough here to 
illustrate the possible province of poetry 
in the field of sculpture. The "then 
down to the tide" tells of movements 
of many pairs of southern folk flocking 
towards the pleasure-roads of Venice for 
the accustomed recreation which comes at 
the end of the day; but we are at once 
separated from the throng by the skillful 
concentration on the two who sit " side 
by side." We are given an interesting 
figure-piece in the "tall and shadowy 
gondolier" who "leaned on his oar like 
a lifted spear." The sculptor's hand 



POETRY 



129 



could scarcely achieve so fine a piece 
because it is lifted above his realm by the 
shadow of outline, for he can work only 
in the glow of day with lines definite and 
distinct. 

Our eyes widen in the dusk to catch the 
forms of the two as they step into the long 
dark boat and the gondolier takes his 
place at the oar. One who has watched 
the fascination of motion of the Venetian 
gondoliers, catches at once in the rhythm 
of the verse, just the sweep of the stroke, 
as the weight of the body is thrown for- 
ward, and the long oar swings slowly back. 

" Then oar a-trip 
On the black boat's keel, then dip and dip ; " — 

and we hold our breath just a little as the 
boat first glides from its landing. 

In the next stanza the thought takes 
us out "in strong level flight " into such 
breadths of horizon and air-space that 
sculpture is given little to fix in line and 
form. Still pushing through the narrow 
canals, a glimpse has come of the sea, and 
thought floats wide o'er its surface. 

In the third stanza we are brought back 
9 



130 



A UDIENCES 



to the boat itself, and its especial romance 
as it glides beneath the Bridge of Sighs, 
so significant to every lover of history and 
poetry, and at last, — 

"We two are together on the Adrian Sea, — 
The one fair woman of the world to me." 

Then in the last stanza we are made 
to feel the even roll of the sea, and the 
climax in action comes as "the one fair 
woman " instinctively draws near to the 
protection of which she is evidently sure. 
The form of the group the poet leaves to 
his audience, and again we have license 
to build our castles in Italy, if not in 
Spain. 

Painting in Poetry 

As the line and form are intrinsically 
part of the picture in painting, so they 
are here, and the strength of the action is 
heightened and intensified by the coloring. 

"Twas night in Venice." In that 
one single sentence there is concentrated 
every hint of beauty and color from all 
the innumerable pictures of the Venetian 
nights with which painters have crowded 
their portfolios and other people's walls. 



POETRY 



131 



Some painter of to-day may look askance 
even at the most beautiful of these scenes, 
and say they are worn out, and that 
Venice has long ago become nothing but 
a picture. Still the imagination loves 
these southern nights with their luscious, 
self-luminous blues. The flood of color 
from this opening sentence must first fill 
the whole scene in order to give it any 
reality. It is the same kind of color in 
which Shakespeare so beautifully paints 
the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet 
in the lines, "Thou know'st the mask 
of night is on my face," — that almost 
over-beautiful night which our careless 
Juliets so often paint for us in the black- 
est pigments. 

Joaquin Miller gives us the same color- 
ing in another scene near the romantic 
Lake of Como, when he says — 

" — my friend and I ; rode down 
By night, where grasses waved in rippled rhyme : 
And so, what theme but love at such a time ? " 

But further on in the same poem, where 
the shadow of night is made to cover the 
horror of a murderous deed, comes the 



132 



A UDIENCES 



impenetrable blackness of midnight, — 
blacker than any pigment could paint it. 
The poet does not use the word night, 
but the blackness of the night-thought 
colors the lines and contrasts forcibly with 
the " morn " and the " rising sun " : — 

" Two men rode silent back toward the lake ; 
Two men rode silent down — but only one 
Rode up at morn to meet the rising sun." 

This painting of poetry is a sound-color 
painting, made by the overtones of the 
voice. It is as clearly distinguishable, 
when the ear has learned to listen for 
it, as are the tone-qualities of different 
instruments, as the flute or violin, the 
piano, harp, or horn. It is by their char- 
acteristic tone-qualities — the overtones 
peculiar to each — that we can tell a harp 
from a horn when they are playing pre- 
cisely the same melody in the same key. 
It is by their tone-colors that we can tell 
one violin from another; that we select 
one piano as good in tone and reject 
another as poor. It is by their tone- 
colors that we can tell a bass voice from 
a tenor, a soprano from a contralto. It 



POETRY 



133 



is largely by tone-color that we recognize 
the voices of our friends. So it is by an 
artistic use of the overtones in the speak- 
ing or singing voice that the reader can 
color a poem ; he can paint the scenes even 
as a painter colors his sketch. Some- 
times the poet will give a single word 
which indicates the color of the whole 
scene; sometimes the thought is only 
suggested, and we must make " the ear an 
eye." 

To return to the Venetian night scene. 
First we see the "tall and shadowy gon- 
dolier; " just back of him is his dark boat 
and the uncertain shimmer of the tide. 
This must all have been hemmed in by the 
overshadowing walls, for the whole scene 
is uncertain in outline, save the some- 
what heroic figure of the gondolier him- 
self. It half seems like a bit of "the 
picturesque " by F. Hopkinson Smith, — 
one of those charming effects which does 
not stereotype the scene, but shows at a 
glance that it is but the impression of a 
moment, and that in another instant the 
picture will change, as it does now, for 
the gondolier pushes off from the landing, 



134 



A UDIEXCES 



and his long graceful boat swings out into 
the canal. 

In the second stanza the coloring is as 
fine as that ever attempted by painter. 
In fact, a painter would be almost over- 
bold to attempt such a scene. There are 
many beautiful achievements of nature 
which no man has ventured to reproduce. 
The line — 

" The sea it was level as seas of light," 

haunts the lover of the sea, for it paints a 
well-known water effect with wonderful 
truth. Sound is a more subtle exponent 
than paint; and while in a picture the 
impression would be painted with its pos- 
sible imperfections, in sound the imagi- 
nation is left absolutely free to picture it 
in all perfection. 

In the next scene there is the sky to 
complete the sea, — the " star-sown sky. " 
All the beautiful color which hung just 
over the sea is now crowned by the bril- 
liancy of the sky, with its dots of light, 
— which in the clear night seem almost 
too large, — and the depth of the blue 
vastness of the air, filling all space. It is 



POETRY 



135 



a scene in which we can breathe, and this 
is the test of truth which must be put to 
all pictures. 

We cannot hope to see much of faces in 
this evening light; even though a face 
be upturned with joy, there is but one 
for whom it is upturned, and he, with a 
man's true feeling, does not speak of it. 
But we are given an idea of beauty which 
long lingers with us. We think of the 
pre-Raphaelite painters and their beau- 
tiful women with wonderful hair. We 
think of the lines in Browning's "Gold 
Hair " : — 

" Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss, 
Freshness and fragrance — floods of it, too ! 
Gold, did I say ? nay, gold 's mere dross : " 

and Rossetti as he sang, — 

" The hair that lay along her back 
Was yellow like ripe corn," 

the woman grows real to us as we 

" there fell 
Such golden folds of abundant hair 
Down over my shoulder, as we sat there." 

It is not expected that these few color 
suggestions will be at all satisfactory. 



and 
see, 



AUDIENCES 



Until one has learned to see color in 
written words, as a musician hears music 
in printed notes, he is like one who at- 
tempts to read a Greek book, not knowing 
Greek. If this is true of color in poetry, 
it is doubly true of music in poetry. 
Still one can come to hear music in writ- 
ten verse also, just as a musician hears a 
symphony in the written score. The old 
Arabian saw could here be reversed to 
read, — That is the best description which 
makes the eye an ear. 

Music in Poetry 

To appreciate the music of a lyric poem, 
we must hear it as we would hear a song, 
or even a song without words. 

Notice the difference in structure be- 
tween this lyric, " In a Gondola," and Men- 
delssohn's " Venetian Gondolier Song," 
op. 1 6, no. 6, in his Lieder ohne Worte. 
Mendelssohn makes the gondolier promi- 
nent. It is he who sings, and though 
the romance is in his song, still we never 
forget the singer. The boat glides on, 
the waters run smoothly, other boats pass, 
and the warning call is given. We drift 



POETRY 



137 



quietly by highly walled banks, winding 
through the narrow canals, until at some 
turn a burst of music floods the whole, 
and we come suddenly upon an open fes- 
tive square, to leave it again as suddenly. 
We pass beyond, and the gondolier and 
his boat slip quietly away, until we hear 
only the ripple of the water, and now 
and then his far-away call, and we catch 
faintly the tolling of some great bell 
striking the hour. This is often music's 
way of singing; but our poet sings more 
as a voice alone, without accompaniment. 

In musical structure there must always 
be a theme, a motif. We have found 
the theme of the poem already architec- 
turally in the refrain, "side by side." 
Each time the refrain is repeated in music, 
it gains in meaning through the further 
development of the harmony and phras- 
ing. So, in this lyric, each time the 
refrain "side by side " comes to us, it is 
freighted with new meaning, it bears a 
new burden, until at the climax, as is 
often the case in music, when the theme 
itself has been developed to the height 
of its possibility, the author gives us for 



138 



A UDIENCES 



climax, not the refrain itself, but its 
antithesis, in such a way as to present 
the real meaning of the theme, but in a 
stronger sense. At the end of the lyric, 
instead of the closeness of the "side by 
side," we have the suggestion of great 
width in " wider for lovers," which 
"wider" suggests the separation which 
the "lovers" denies. 

So much for the formal structure of the 
poem; the details, as in the case of a 
musical composition, are to be found in 
the phrasing; and it is just at this point 
that the interpreters of poetry, but more 
especially of dramatic poetry, are par- 
ticularly weak. Emotion gives color to 
tone, but it is intellect alone which gives 
the phrasing. The infinite number of 
interesting things which can be said of a 
musician's phrasing can be said as well 
and as significantly of a poet's. In music 
there is the conscientiousness of Bach, 
the freedom of Beethoven, the daring of 
Wagner; and in poetry there is the con- 
scientiousness of Spenser, the freedom of 
Shakespeare, the daring of Browning. 

To illustrate: follow this poem through 



POETRY 



139 



very broadly as to its phrasing. The verses 
will be separated into the larger phrases, 
numbered, and the important ones marked 
with an *; the smaller, subordinate ones 
will be marked in loops , — ^ as one marks 
phrases in music. 



* 1 ('T was night in Venice. 



Then down to the tide, 



2 I Where a tall and a shadowy gondolier 
\Leaned on his oar, like a lifted spear: — 



* 3 ('T was night in Venice ; 



then side by side 



4 We sat in his boat. Then oar a-trip 



VOn the black boat's keel, then dip and dip ; — 
^ / These boatmen should build their boats more wide, 

5 ( - 

\For we were together, and side by side. 



II 



* 1 (The sea it was level as seas of light, 



2 



As still as the light ere a hand was laid 



To the making of lands, or the seas were made. 

('T was fond as a bride on her bridal night 
When a great love swells in her soul like the sea, 
And makes her but less than divinity. 



A UDIENCES 



* 4 ('T was night, — 

* 5 ( The soul of the day, I wis : 

* 6 (A woman's face hiding from her first kiss. 

Ill 



I ('T was night in Venice. 

5 2 ( On o'er the tide — 

These boats they are narrow as they can be, 
.These crafts they are narrow enough, 

and we, 

To balance the boat, sat side by side — 
Out under the arch of the Bridge of Sighs, 
,On under the arch of the star-sown skies : 
6 (We two were together on the Adrian Sea, — 
* 7 (The one fair woman of the world to me. 

IV 



These narrow-built boats, they rock when at sea, 
And they make one afraid 



2 ( So she leaned to me; 

/And that is the reason alone there fell 
* 3 Such golden folds of abundant hair 



\Down 



over my shoulder, as we sat there. 



* 4 (These boatmen should build their boats more wide, 

* 5 (Wider for lovers ; ^ ^ 

* 6 ( as wide — 

* 7 ( Ah, well ! 

*8 (But who is the rascal to kiss, and tell? 



POETRY 



141 



The opening phrase, "'Twas night in 
Venice/' attracts the ear at once. The 
description which follows serves only to 
loop the thought over to the restatement 
of "'Twas night," etc.; "then side by 
side " and the next two lines loop over 
to the last two lines, which are stated 
positively, "These boatmen," etc. The 
prominence of thought makes the distinc- 
tion between these five large phrases and 
the subordinate ones. 

The second stanza is a large and pas- 
sion-pure variation. The phrasing fol- 
lows very much that of the first stanza. 
The principal phrases are in the first, 
fourth, and last two lines, only the promi- 
nence given to these is not nearly so 
intense as in the first stanza; for the 
whole, we must remember, diverges from 
our theme. The last line suggests the 
end of the fourth stanza, which is a very 
clever thing to attempt. 

In the third stanza the handling of the 
phrases is almost the reverse of that in 
the first stanza. It is the loops between 
the first, fourth, and last two lines which 
gain the ascendency, until the last line 



142 



A UD FENCES 



brings in a new motif in "The one fair," 
etc. 

The last stanza takes up the phrase- 
statements more evenly; the first, second, 
and third lines growing toward a crescendo 
in the fourth and fifth, coming back to 
the phrasing of the first line in " These 
boatmen should build their boats more 
wide." In next to the last line, as we 
observed before, the antithesis of the orig- 
inal theme is stated boldly, and then — 
with a cleverness rivalled by few musi- 
cians, and seldom so attempted by them 

— the poet turns the whole tide of the 
expectant phrase, and throws the burden 
of the ending upon his audience. 

If phrasing were purely mechanical, a 
knowledge of grammar would suffice us; 
but it being artistic as well, we need to 
know something of musical structure to 
appreciate it in its fullest meaning. 

So far we have taken up musical form 
only. To touch upon the rhythm would 
involve us in technicalities, and melody 

— which is the individualizing element of 
music — must be heard to be understood. 
The rhythm in the flow of this little song 



POETRY 



143 



can be easily felt, and we may be sure, 
with such beauty of scene, there must 
be exquisite melody as well. Our ears 
are seldom slow in making us aware of 
melody, — all the world loves a tune ; 
but our eyes are very apt to forget, that 
in this, they play only a subordinate part. 
The child's story of the quarrelling of the 
senses has still some meaning for us. 



THE LANGUAGE OF TONE 



HE Language of Tone is so subtle, 



X so insinuating, so evanescent, that 
only a master can hold it fast. It slips 
from our grasp. It evades, it eludes us, 
and we follow, as after a dream fan- 
tasy. Nevertheless, music is an art, and, 
being an art, one can catch the outline 
of its form, and hold this at least captive. 
Beyond this in every art, to understand 
fully, one must have the art-instinct, the 
aesthetic faculty. It is form, however, 
which gives us a reason for our listening, 
and audiences need ask no more. 

Music, unlike speech, is simple in that 
it has a simple scale for its utterance. 
Great artists are well aware of the mar- 
velous effect of lifting a note a trifle 
above pitch, or lowering it a little, to 




IO 



146 



A UDIENCES 



intensify the significance of its meaning; 
but still, as a formal language, music holds 
strictly to the scale. Twelve half-tones, 
with the octaves above and below, formed 
at will into a major or minor scale, fur- 
nish music with the material for all her 
compositions. This seems delightfully 
simple, but like the simplicity of the pris- 
matic colors in painting, out of it grows 
a world of complexity, and the works of 
the master tone-builders are found to be 
fearfully and wonderfully made. 

Musical phrases bear an exact relation 
to the grammatical phrases in word lan- 
guage with which every one ought to be 
familiar. Out of the simple musical 
phrases, put together to form music- 
sentences and paragraphs, is built the 
whole musical structure; so in this there 
is a good basis for beginning, whether we 
"know notes" — as the old farmer said 
— or not. 

Do not anticipate anything like an 
exhaustive analysis of the form of musi- 
cal compositions. All that is interesting 
to know here, is that composers use the 
different forms of musical compositions 



THE LANGUAGE OF TONE 147 



for exactly the same reason that writers 
use histories, biographies, poems, novels, 
or essays, in which to speak out their 
thoughts and to advance their ideas to 
their fellows. One may expect, there- 
fore, to find wide differences between the 
musical intention of songs, sonatas, ora- 
torios, symphonies, operas, dances, and 
etudes. The composer, as well as the 
writer, must be trusted to use the form 
best suited to his especial purpose. Each 
form is greater or less only in degree; all 
may be great. 

It is frequent that artists working in 
different materials are trying to say very 
much the same things. There are not 
very many things to be said, after all; 
that is, not many of paramount importance 
to humankind. It is man who is mani- 
fest, and we dare none of us claim igno- 
rance of man, whether we hope to learn 
more of him through the arts, or whether 
we ignore the arts completely. 

No artist can doubt that Sidney Lanier, 
in his poem "The Symphony," has reached 
the same high plane which Beethoven found 
in his Ninth Symphony, or which Saint 



148 



A UDIENCES 



Paul proclaimed when he said, " Though 
I speak with the tongues of men and of 
angels and have not love, ... I am noth- 
ing !" Such great heights are not often 
reached ; but there are many intermediate 
ones between what man is and what man 
might be, which artists of all kinds have 
tried to make clear. To express the 
thought and feeling of man, — this is 
art's whole aim. 

It is undisciplined emotion which kills 
artists and hinders art, and it is this in 
art which an audience should learn to 
know and condemn. All music is not 
good music, any more than all poetry is 
good poetry, or all painting good paint- 
ing. There are some paintings — alack! 
one must needs say many paintings — 
which are as debasing as vice itself. Can 
it be expected that poetry and music, 
being more ethereal, are altogether free 
from taint? Painting being a more ma- 
terial art, its grossness is more appar- 
ent; but it is also apparent in degree in 
the other arts. Yes; and in the higher 
arts, as they touch so intimately and 
keenly man's innermost susceptibilities 



THE LANGUAGE OF TONE 1 49 



and mainsprings of motive, the danger is 
terribly insidious. 

The nature of vibration in sound allies 
it very closely to human emotion itself, 
and human emotion has a degrading as 
well as an elevating tendency. Human 
feeling, like musical sound, has its cres- 
cendos and diminuendos, its accelerandos 
and retardandos, its forte and forzando, its 
piano and pianissimo, its andante, alle- 
gretto, allegro, and vivace, its presto and its 
adagio, its sustained heights of emotion, 
like sustenuto tranquillo, its furioso move- 
ments and its morendos. 

No one can doubt that the tremendous 
hold which music has upon all sorts and 
conditions of people, lies in its close kin- 
ship with the emotional life of mankind. 
Schumann struggled hugely, and wrote 
for us themes which are really emotions 
from his soul of souls. Wagner strove to 
pierce further, and, instead of making the 
expression individual, made it universal, 
in choosing some deeply human myth 
through which earlier minds had tried 
to express the abstract. His Musical- 
Dramas deal with more than single char- 



A UDIEXCES 



acters; they treat of universal types. 
They embody feelings common to all peo- 
ples. Beethoven ! Somehow it is hard 
to think that he too struggled for utter- 
ance. His music, even in its depths 
of intensity, never runs riot. It has 
a classic touch which easily owns him 
master. But when we look into his deep- 
set eyes, — as his face is left for us, — 
we know that he too struggled long "to 
arrive." 

The music of different times and nations 
depends upon the resources of their musi- 
cal instruments, or the statement might 
with equal right be reversed, for the de- 
velopment of the musical art in a nation 
determines the character of their musical 
instruments. The Hindus, the Cinghalese 
and Japanese, have some instruments of 
beautiful tone, and the Turks and Arabs 
some atrocious ones; but their music has 
a less definite scale than ours, less con- 
ventionalized. To western ears, how- 
ever, their music partakes more strongly 
of inflection than of musical notes, and 
more of noise than of distinctly musical 
sound ; and when the human instrument 



THE LANGUAGE OF TONE 151 



is considered, — as in singing, — their 
nasal tones, and often shrieks, are not 
altogether to the taste of western ears, 
although the natives hasten to assure us 
that all are beautiful, that our orchestra 
and band music is much "too big," our 
"fiddle too small/' and our "singing — 
Bah ! " 

In considering the instruments pecu- 
liar to our own orchestra, it will be found, 
that since the time of Haydn, each in- 
strument has grown to have its especial 
interpretative power. If one hears much 
orchestra-music, in following the develop- 
ment of a theme, he can tell very nearly 
just when the flute-notes will be needed, 
when the brass and strings, when the 
clarionet or drums, — as one can read 
ahead in a book or poem, or a play. It 
is out of this study of the characteristic 
expressional values of the different instru- 
ments that our great symphonies have been 
developed. There is nothing that gives 
one so clear an idea of the range of expres- 
sion of the chief orchestral instruments as 
that poem of Sidney Lanier's mentioned 
before, "The Symphony. " Who but him- 



152 



A UDIENCES 



self, great flutist and able violinist that 
he was, would have dared to put such 
feelings into words? Musicians always 
shrink from so doing. They seldom care 
to say anything to the uninitiated. It is 
always, " Let them learn music, and they 
too will understand as we do, — if there be 
any understanding in them." 

Single instruments all have received at- 
tention, each has had its great masters, yet 
there are possibilities for each which have 
not yet been guessed. Paganini startled 
the world. Yet much that was new and 
strangely difficult to his audiences of the 
first days of this century has become the 
common property of every good violinist 
to-day. Undoubtedly there is still ample 
opportunity for special development. 

Beethoven used wisely and wonderfully 
all the instruments at his command; but 
he realized that there was one greater 
instrument than all. He essayed to use 
this human instrument too, in his opera, 
"Fidelio;" but with greater triumph, how- 
ever, in his Choral Symphony he brings 
in the human voices to crown the whole. 
Schiller's " Hymn to Joy" has gained 



THE LANGUAGE OF TONE 1 53 



the noblest setting which hymn has ever 
known in the grand finale to this Ninth 
Symphony. 

Wagner followed in the path which 
Beethoven had thus pioneered, but more 
boldly ; he used the voices as other musi- 
cians had used an orchestra. Beethoven's 
Grand Chorale gives the singers plenty of 
hard work, but Wagner's demand upon 
them is enormous. He works his orches- 
tra nearly to death, and his singers hardly 
less. We may enjoy this or not. It all 
depends on our point of view. 

There are three ways in which music 
appeals to men: through its rhythm, 
its melody, and its harmony. Those 
who have been fortunate enough to hear 
Strauss' s Vienna Orchestra can appre- 
ciate rhythm almost in its perfection. 
The peculiar sympathy between the leader 
and the players gives us the dance-meas- 
ure in the full swing of the fascination 
of motion. This is the most physical 
appeal of music; it is its most elementary 
appeal. This rhythm is the foundation 
of the dance-measure, out of the develop- 
ment of which all our modern music has 



154 



A UDIENCES 



grown. Our symphony itself boasts no 
higher origin, but it has grown through 
this development into something infinitely 
greater than the primitive rhythm of the 
dance, and only at times recognizable as 
akin to it. 

Harmony is the intellectual develop- 
ment of music. It is the mind of music, 
as rhythm is the body, and melody the 
soul. Harmony is the scientific founda- 
tion of music. It is the wise, reasonable 
part; and he who thinks that music is a 
mere thing of sensuous appeal or pleasur- 
able emotional excitement, knows nothing 
of its mental possibilities. Great minds 
have wrestled with fugue and counter- 
point. There remains as much and more 
to be done, for the variety in combination 
is nothing short of infinite. Strongly 
intellectual natures find much reasonable 
logic in the harmonic progressions and 
developments of musical themes. These 
can be followed well in Bach's music, for, 
in the na'fve simplicity of his intellect, 
he allows us to watch these processes 
of his intellectualization perhaps clearer 
than any other composer. 



THE LANGUAGE OF TONE 155 



Any musician, however, can build a 
harmony, but it takes a genius to create 
a melody. We look to melody for the 
peculiar characteristics of music. Melody 
gives individuality, distinction. That it 
is through melody that music has its 
greatest hold on mankind, is made plain 
by the universality of folk-song, although 
in these, the rhythm, it is true, plays also 
an important part. Rising in the scale of 
civilization, we find, in the lowest, less of 
melody than of rhythm ; but higher, the 
melody grows in importance as it does in 
power. 

There is more too in the combination 
of words and music than the world has 
been aware of until within the last part of 
our century. There is a subtle relation 
between not only the sentiment expressed, 
but even the very vowels and consonants 
of the words, and the notes of the scale. 
In no other way can we account for the 
immense power which certain simple 
songs have over all nations. Take our 
much abused and caricatured " Annie 
Laurie." In spite of grind-organ degen- 
eracy and impious treatment, when well 



i 5 6 



A UDIENCES 



sung it has a power over all English 
speaking people which no elaborate oper- 
atic aria could ever have. Bayard Taylor 
knew well the enormous power of the 
ballad, as he shows in his " Song of 
the Camp," that masterful glimpse of the 
Crimean War. 

Wagner realized this correspondence of 
sentiment, vowel, and note so forcibly that 
he was obliged to write his own poems for 
his operas, for which all lovers of German 
song are ever grateful. In melody too, 
or more properly formal tunes as our ears 
have come to know them, his works are 
abundant; but he is so lavish in giving 
us half a dozen tunes at a time, that it 
takes some nicety of tone-training for 
our ears to distinguish and follow them. 
If we have not in some degree learned 
to do this, there is little wonder if much 
that he has written seems to us mere 
noise, as one so often hears it called. 

Just a few words about our modern 
songs and sketch-books. Musicians too, 
with poets and painters, have caught the 
modern spirit of impressionism. Grieg 
gives us little glimpses of nature which 



THE LANGUAGE OF TONE 1 57 



are very modern in touch. We catch the 
darting movement of a butterfly as the sun 
glances from its wings. We see it sail 
softly among the shadows, floating afar, 
fluttering near, then darting off in an un- 
expected way, as butterflies are wont to 
do. Nevins gives us water-scenes, quiet 
as thought, with huge dragon-flies — rain- 
bows of light — hovering lazily over the 
surface, or purling, gurgling streams and 
flower-lined banks with some perfect little 
god of a narcissus flower leaning along- 
side. 

This too is heresy in art, as the old 
Meisonnier-like musicians tell us. Shall 
we trust the critics, or our own impres- 
sions? Impressionism is so new a thing 
in art that as yet its devotees are only 
students. A few names stand out boldly 
in painting; but only the enthusiasts call 
them masters. They are still only striv- 
ing toward something which they catch 
but dimly. The greatest success of this 
school has been achieved in poetry. 
Modern vers-de-societe in a distinctly 
human way shows an abundance of im- 
pressionistic studies, and we feel in poets 



158 



A UDIENCES 



like Dobson that the form of the impres- 
sion has attained more of completeness 
than we find in painting and music. It 
is quite possible, however, that the very 
conventionality of this form, as it is due 
largely to its French origin, proves a 
stumbling-block to any impartial criti- 
cism. Time will prove. 

We are greatly hopeful for English 
songs. Singers have been slow to give 
their audiences an opportunity to know of 
the beauty of pure English. Presumably 
it has been too difficult for them, and they 
have used the laziest language lying easily 
at hand, which accounts for the superabun- 
dance of florid music with Italian words 
skipping along here and there, just for con- 
ventionality's sake. "Songs must have 
some words, you know!" the Italian song- 
writers admit, and string a lot of insipidi- 
ties together, which the singer usually 
does not understand, and the audience is 
not given a chance to understand even if 
they could, while in all probability they 
could not, and would be worse off if they 
could. A conglomeration of Tra-la-la, 
Tre-le-le, Troo-loo-loo, would be as 



THE LANGUAGE OF TONE I 59 



efficacious as far as making us any the 
wiser for words. And what is worse than 
all, the singers are audacious enough to 
tell us that the words are of no account 
whatever. " It is the beautiful tone which 
makes the music. " If so, pray whistle 
to us, good singers. It will be quite as 
acceptable to us, commonplace audiences 
that we are. 

In confidence, just to the audience: 
Did you ever know a singer who spoke 
beautiful English or any other language, 
and spoke it purely, truly, and intelli- 
gently, who ignored the words of a song ? 
Is it not rather those who speak their 
mother tongue slovenly and indecently, 
(a practice which our ears have by con- 
stant habit grown so to pardon in conver- 
sation), who fear the prominence of words 
in song? There, where language is accen- 
tuated, and every word is distinct, promi- 
nent, and "long drawn out," mistakes 
and impurities of language are so glar- 
ingly emphasized that even the much- 
enduring, much-forgiving ears of the 
patient audience cannot pass over the 
errors. 



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Still, it is usually the case that these 
same word-scorning singers sing their 
much-adored Italian as abominably as 
they would sing our good English. It 
takes brains as well as lungs and a 
pharynx to sing words ; and if these were 
not so often wofully lacking, we would 
to-day have more song-artists and fewer 
men and women with larynxes that have 
been trained to perform a few vocal feats. 
As audience we shall hope that the wide- 
felt want of broader education for all 
artists, will give us, among other bless- 
ings, some singers who will interpret for 
us in all its purity and beauty our own 
excellent English. 



MUSIC 



HERE is a little Cradle Song by 
Grieg. It is simple; but here is 
the simplicity of the master and not the 
simpleness of the simpleton. It takes a 
master to interpret its full meaning, just 
as it takes a Bernhardt to read " The Last 
Rose of Summer," a Patti to sing it, or a 
Paderewski to play some tiny minuet. 

Let us follow it through first for the 
technique, — the method of its making, — 
then for its expression, — the end and aim 
of its making. It is published as the 
first number in Grieg's Second Book of 
Lyric Pieces, and arranged originally for 
the piano as printed here. 

In form it phrases itself into three 
groups like the stanzas in verse, though 
the expression marks show only two 
ii 



162 



A UDIENCES 



1. Berceuse. 



Allegretto trnnquillo. J= 9^ Edrard Grieg, Op. 38. 




# to «5a # 3a # to * 3a • 



MUSIC 





Edition PeUr*. 



MUSIC 



I6 5 



— the first marked Allegretto tranquillo 
(page 162), and the second, as the key 
changes, Con moto (page 163) ; but as 
the key changes and the first tempo is 
resumed, a tempo (middle of page 164), 
we find the third phrase group. In the 
first division (page 162) are four phrases 
of four bars each, marked p, to be played 
softly and then repeated very, very softly, 
ppp y until the song seems to die away. Of 
these four phrases, the second repeats the 
first, — a little higher and in another, the 
dominant, key, — 



1st Phrase (i) 



(2) 



(3) 



(4) 













P 








- 1* f 



2d Phrase 




and the third further emphasizes it by 
repeating it an octave above the first, with 



AUDIENCES 



the addition of a few notes to give a little 
variety in the harmony. 

3d Phrase 




The fourth phrase in its first bar (1) 
repeats the same interval that has been 
emphasized before, but with an added har- 
mony. The next bars (2, 3, 4) change 
the intervals, and in a harmonic progres- 
sion lead up to the second octave above 
the opening note in the first phrase, only 

4 th Phrase (i) (2) (3) (4) 

74 



Tit. 



m 



i 



i 



to drop again in closing (4), — thus strik- 
ing the keynote in three octaves with the 
tonic chord, which ends the movement, 
the repetition being a mere echo, fainting 
in the distance. 



MUSIC 



See on how slight a theme a composer 
builds a composition. Written in the key 
of G, the song opens on the keynote, and 
falls to the fourth below. This 
I J , gives the character of the whole 
melody. It is repeated in the 
second bar (2) of the first phrase, varied in 
rhythm and melody, by splitting it into 
thirds in the third bar (3), and repeated in 
the fourth (4), as first stated. Here is the 
simplicity of melody and monotony of 
rhythm, which with the syncopated base 
gives the rocking of the cradle, — the 
accompaniment of the mother's lullaby. 

These same four phrases, based on this 
melody, form the third part (page 164), 
which ends the song. The second part 
(page 163), in a different key, with a dif- 
ferent rhythm and melody, states a very 
different thought. The measured first 
eight bars are 
marked in eight 
short phrases, 
which are re- 
peated in the 
next eight bars; 
and then an ascending chord breaks in 




i68 



A UDIEXCES 



and gives the keynote for the repetition 
of the mother's son£ in a different 



key, which after its four phrases i == p 
ends with eight short phrases very 
abrupt and broken, a startled cry, which 
subsides and dies away to the d note, 
dominant of the original key, 

f J x which now comes in again as 
the first melody is repeated (a 
te7npo page 164), and ends the song. 

All this sounds rather stupid and tech- 
nical, but it is only by taking things to 
pieces that one can find out how they are 
made, and of what. Now that we come 
to the expression of the song, the beauty 
of the phrasing will be clearer and more 
interesting. 

Music gives us the atmosphere in which 
thoughts and feelings are born and live. 
In any music which does not join itself 
to words, which are the conventionalized 
and organic symbols of thought, we must 
expect to find more of feeling and im- 
pressions of thought than of distinct and 
limited thoughts, as we would have in a 
word sentence. Just such an impression 
would be given by a painting where the 



MUSIC 



atmosphere was truly shown. But, unlike 
painting or poetry, where under a glorious 
sunset the artist can in fine scorn paint 
the sorrows of man or his sins, in music, 
when the clouds lower, so do the spirits 
of men, and when the sun bursts forth in 
his radiance, the joy of man's heart is 
full too. There is never in music, — 
i. e.> in simple music without words, — 
that irony of fate, that sarcasm of nature, 
which glories in itself and ignores the 
sorrows and joys of mankind. Where 
many instruments concur in making up a 
great composition, as in orchestral music, 
very complex and opposite feelings and 
thoughts can be expressed ; but the atmos- 
phere gives always the raison d' etre for 
the theme. No o'erclouded mood lasts 
long under music's open sky, for the sun 
penetrates all darkness. 

Here, without the title, Berceuse, the 
melody has a certain simplicity and mo- 
notonous tenderness, and the rhythm a 
characteristic rocking which gives us an 
unmistakable cradle-song. It opens very 
smoothly, tranquilly, and softly, with just 
enough action for accompaniment to keep 



AUDIENCES 



the rocking of the cradle prominent. It 
is the Norwegian mother song as she 
sings her little one to sleep, sewing per- 
haps as she rocks the cradle steadily, and 
sings some simple folk tune. The cradle 
swings to and fro monotonously, following 
the melody of the song, growing slower 
as it ends. Then her voice takes up the 
song again, this time almost under her 
breath, repeating drowsily the same tiny 
air. The cradle rocks slower and slower, 
the song dies away, and at last both cradle 
and song are still, and the baby sleeps. 

Now comes the dream. The key changes, 
the con moto movement begins. It is a 
tiny dream, a baby's dream, dream of an 
Erl-king perhaps, as the measured time 
rides on with well-marked tread toward a 
crescendo and dies away on the sustained 
tone (d), just as a child's breathing rests 
for an instant; then the dream measure 
begins again in a higher key, very 
pathetic, beginning minor as before, but 
ending in the major on the sustained 
third (d'y and /?). Then begins a little 
tremor running up from the bass on the 
minor arpeggio of c%> a little trembling 



MUSIC 



171 



shiver which ends quietly on e§ just as 
an echo of the mother's song runs through 
the baby's sleep, recalled in a different 
key and with the melody a little reversed. 
This is most beautifully handled, very 
effective as it increases to a bold forte, 
a child's waking cry as it startles from 
some troubled dream. Then, as the 
mother's hand lovingly swings the cradle 
again, the sobs die out and the mother's 
song begins anew, — to and fro, rocking 
and singing, so sweet, so soothing, so 
tender, — slower, and slower, and slower, 
till the baby sleeps safely at last. 

See how marked the rocking phrase is, 
with the little stress, as the force of the 
mother's foot or hand pushes the cradle 
from her, and it swings back smoothly 
of its own weight. It needs a master's 
touch, steady and true, to mark the little 
swinging character of this phrase, — 
always the same whether forte or pianis- 
simo. Note how artistically and truly the 
expression-marks are used. The song at 
first is very steady, very quiet and sooth- 
ing, monotonous, just as loud at ending 
as at beginning; then the wonderfully 



172 



A UDIENCES 



soft repetition, under the breath, as the 
mother just notices that the wee one is 
fast travelling to dreamland, and the beau- 
tiful diminuendo and retardo as the cradle 
slowly suspends its swinging and the 
child sleeps. 

Note the suppressed passion of the 
weird dream, a dream of strange things. 
A half-remembered echo flits through the 
tiny brain, of some folk-tale the mother 
has told; then the remembrance of the 
mother song so dear to the child-heart 
mixes with the dream-tale, which repeats 
itself, gathering in excited terror, until 
it wakens the child. The little one starts 
with a cry as the music swells to a 
forte (f), then the sobs die out as the 
cradle swings again. Here to interpret 
truly, the master hand must move the 
keys. What tyro could make the simple 
notes pure enough in tone, in gradually 
declining rhythm, in soothing tenderness, 
to express the composer's intent, — very 
simple, very true to life, — altogether 
exquisite. 

Finally, the little crescendo lends inter- 
est to the folk-tune and emphasizes the 



MUSIC 



173 



steady, drowsy morendo of the sleep-going 
child. 

It is a slight bit of music, this Ber- 
ceuse, fit for a single instrument alone. 
Larger thoughts demand larger settings, 
complex themes need complex color- 
schemes and use a whole orchestra of 
instruments; but the whole orchestra can 
do no more than touch the heart and the 
brain 3 and this slight song does as much. 



THE MUSICAL-DRAMA 



A LITTLE definite glimpse has been 
given now of each of the arts, with 
but a few slight suggestions of what each 
art-language can say to those who look 
and listen. Each language is powerful. 
Each has its especial power, each its 
limitations. Less has been said of limit- 
ations than of possibilities, for there are 
always plenty of connoisseurs ready to 
say to each art and to each art-work the 
" Thus far shalt thou go, no farther ! " 
This can be left with the connoisseurs. 
It is safe enough with them. 

The power of each art has been shown, 
though one scarcely dares to say that one 
art is greater, one less. All have one end, 
— to appeal to man, — man, the living, 
thinking, loving being; and as they do 



THE MUSICAL-DRAMA I 75 



this truly, as they do this nobly, each is 
equally strong with the strength of a pure 
purpose. Still it has been seen, as the 
arts have progressed, that their expression 
has grown more nearly one with the spon- 
taneous thought and feeling of man. All 
art is great as it wastes or spends naught 
of the power of the artistic conception in 
getting that conception into definite form, 
— that is, as its expression becomes direct 
and spontaneous. 

Wagner, the great wonder-worker of 
our time, the culmination of all art- 
effort, all art-thought, all art-feeling, — 
Wagner, that man profound and primitive 
in his grasp of man and his nature and 
life, saw that each art had worn for itself 
a channel-bed from whence its stream 
flowed into the great river of life. But he, 
in some moment of high thought, grasped 
at a purpose which burned through his 
whole life until he was on fire to do the 
wonderful thing which he had seen was 
possible. With great ingenuity, great 
mental grasp, great emotional strength, 
he carved out a broader channel in the 
midst of these winding streams of art; 



176 



A UDIENCES 



until the streams themselves, hearing and 
watching the master at work, became 
impregnated with the master's purpose, 
and poetry and music mingled their 
waters with a great leap of joy. Form, 
line, action, and color added their bounty, 
and the one great channel of art mingled 
with the River of Life until no man could 
tell where art ended and life began, for 
his art was very life itself. And he gave 
us his "Parsifal." 

This great co-ordination of the arts, 
finished in detail, subtle in conception, 
heroic in manifestation, makes the "in- 
tensest " demand upon all its artist inter- 
preters made by any of the single arts. 
In the production of Wagner's great 
Musical-Dramas, no one can realize the 
tremendousness of the composer's demand 
who has not heard from himself the story 
of his life and of his work. Ten good 
volumes tell us in his own words of his 
struggles, but his Musical-Dramas alone 
can adequately tell of his attainment. 

No attempt will be made to enter into 
an analysis of one of his works, nor to 
give an analysis of his purposes in detail ; 



THE MUSICAL-DRAMA 177 



but just a few of his theories will show in 
contrast the difference between this art- 
work, where all the arts are intimately 
joined, and poetry, that inclusive art, in 
whose being all arts are organic parts and 
fibres. This last has been suggested 
briefly in the chapter on "Word Lan- 
guage; " the first will be stated as briefly 
for purpose of comparison. 

To begin with music, the crowning art. 
Wagner early in his life discovered that 
when music was joined to words it gained 
a power which, even when the words were 
scant and scarcely fit, the music indiffer- 
ent and interpreted only half-well, was 
still unique, peculiar to itself, and stronger 
than music pure and simple; but when, 
as occasionally happened, good music 
was joined to good poetry or poor music 
joined to poor poetry, but interpreted 
by an artist, the effect was stupendous, 
as was shown by the repeated triumphs of 
the singer Schroder-Devrient. 

Wagner followed out this thought to its 
foundation. He realized that the effect 
which this joining of poetry and music 
produced was something entirely new, 



178 



A UDIENCES 



and quite apart from the effect produced 
by any one of the arts singly. Taking 
Beethoven as the height of achievement 
in music, and Shakespeare as the height 
of achievement in the drama (poetry), he 
thought to realize his conception of what 
the Musical-Drama might become by in- 
corporating into the drama the full power 
which Beethoven had given to German 
music. 

The masterpieces of Beethoven — his 
symphonies, for example — show a conven- 
tionalized structure in their composition, 
to which Beethoven has given neverthe- 
less marvelous vitality, and even life 
itself through the wonder of his melody. 
Still were the form freer, were melody for 
instance completely loosed from this con- 
ventionalized symphonic form and incor- 
porated into the life-like and masterfully 
dramatic conceptions of a Shakespeare, 
this very melody would rise to a greater 
power than it had ever before attained. 

The foolish and ignorant charge of " lack 
of melody " is so often put to Wagner's 
work, that to gain a true conception of 
what he has done in art, one must under- 



THE MUSICAL-DRAMA 1 79 



stand melody as he conceived it. The 
history of music from the very earliest 
time is merely the history of the develop- 
ment of melody, which is music itself, 
that is, it is the form in which music 
is manifest. In articulated speech man 
embodies his thoughts; but it is in tone 
that he expresses his feelings, the whole 
gamut of his emotions. Now, this tone 
must gain for itself some form if it is to 
grow organically into an art-language, and 
this form we name melody. 

In Italy the need of melody caused the 
development of the lyric drama into the 
opera. Italian opera serves well for com- 
parison, not only because Wagner's work 
is avowedly opposed to it, but because it 
has come to be considered by the un- 
learned in musical matters as the embodi- 
ment of melody. This Italian opera grew 
out of an imitation of the Greek tragedy, 
with its " choral song and the dramatic 
recitation which periodically rose into 
musical measure." As the recitation was 
obliged to carry the whole burden of the 
drama, the dramatic action, the story, it 
grew monotonous to the Italians, and thus 



i8o 



A UDIENCES 



the "air" was developed, the tune, which 
grew into the aria of Italian opera as we 
have it sung to-day. 

Schumann says : " One must hear Italian 
music among the Italians, German music 
may be enjoyed under any heaven. " 

In Italian opera these arias grew to be 
the principal part of the opera, and they 
were strung together by a succession of 
meaningless chords, which were no music 
at all. So, the greater part of the opera 
grew to be a meaningless, though un- 
obtrusive, background of mere noise, to 
which there was no form and so absolutely 
no melody. The consequence was that 
when the aria appeared w T ith its time, 
the opera audience of the drowsy, sunny 
southland awoke from its stupor, or ceased 
its gossiping and small-talk, to hear 
the melody, which, in its undistracting, 
unobtrusive setting, shone forth a rare 
jewel, that, had it been mixed in a hand- 
ful of jewels, might not have appeared so 
bright. 

Italian opera, in its degradation, became 
no more than a book with words jumbled 
haphazard over the page, with here and 



THE MUSICAL-DRAMA l8l 



there scattered through the leaves a 
charming bit of verse where the words 
were formed into sensible sentences, and 
in whose cadence the ear could catch 
some meaning, slight though it might be; 
while Wagner's Musical-Drama is a book 
that must be read through, word for word, 
sentence for sentence, page for page. 
Italian opera has its few melodies, well- 
set and prominent. Wagner's Musical- 
Drama is one large melody. Wagner 
conceived his whole drama as an entire 
melody, the smaller divisions of which 
were organic parts of a complete whole, 
the individual character motifs or themes 
of which were reasonable and logical, and 
withal intensely attuned to the feeling 
itself. 

Melody is the simple, direct embodi- 
ment of a man's inner nature in tone. 
Harmony is an artificial form of arrang- 
ing sounds which grew up in the history 
of the development of music. The only 
form in which our modern ear can grasp 
melody is the form which has come to us 
ready-made, and was developed from the 
rhythm of the dance. It is recognizable 



182 



A UDIENCES 



to us only by the repetition of certain 
definite melodic members in a definite 
rhythm. This is the melody of which 
all musical compositions are constructed. 
Wagner so constructed his Musical-Drama, 
that the whole production is conceived as 
one unified melody. This large melody 
does not consist merely of an aggrega- 
tion or accumulation of musical themes 
or motifs, strung together to give the 
composition a suitable length; but in it 
we find a complete absorption of many 
motifs into one great motif, and for this 
strengthening of the one great motif he 
used the art of poetry, in its purest con- 
ception, and with a peculiarity in its 
selection of subject, which also needs 
explanation. 

Man's primitive expression is in tone, 
as we know by the sobs and crooning 
laugh-tones of the child. This tone, 
which is open and unobstructed, may 
be compared with the vocal tone given 
by certain wind instruments, allied in 
mechanical structure to the human vocal 
apparatus. This open tone is expressive 
of the whole gamut of emotion, but can 



THE MUSICAL-DRAMA 1 83 



express no definite thought. It is only 
when this open tone comes to be enclosed 
or fenced-in by consonants, which are 
formed by the closing in different ways 
of the vocal apparatus, that these open 
sounds carry any definite meaning to the 
understanding. The open-toned vowels 
of speech carry and express, therefore, 
man's feeling, and in this connection all 
the separate vowels may be considered as 
one vowelj the variety and distinction 
being given to speech by the variety of 
the consonants which shape these open 
vowel sounds into organic words. 

The consonants are possessed of a differ- 
ent power as they occur at the beginning 
or end of a vowel, and limit the vowel 
sound in a different way. It will not 
be necessary to go further into Wagner's 
theories developed from the nature of the 
vowel and the consonant in speech. His 
use of words in his dramas alone makes 
the nature of his theories evident. It is 
essential only to make clear, that, as 
speech is composed of the open-toned 
vowel, outlined by the form-shaping con- 
sonant, this vowel — being tone — makes 



A UD1ENCES 



in itself, in its very utterance, a melody 
which is none other than the same tone 
and melody from which music itself has 
been developed. Therefore in the join- 
ing of words and music, there is merely 
the connection of one with the other 
with a common ground of similarity of 
being. 

It is necessary to consider the essence 
and form of these two arts of poetry and 
music, as Wagner conceived them, as 
ready existing for a possible union. Vol- 
taire said with nice scorn: "What is 
too silly to be said, one gets it sung." 
Wagner changed this imputation, and as 
the type of requirement in a poem put 
it : " What is not worth the being sung, 
neither is it worth the poet's pains of 
telling. " In language, as in action, in his 
dramas he cut away the purely accidental, 
petty, and indefinite, and left only the 
purely human core. In frank emotion 
we try to express ourselves briefly and to 
the point, and if possible in one breath. 
This it is that gives us the measure for 
a phrase in verse (poetry) as well as a 
phrase in tone (music). The breath itself 



THE MUSICAL-DRAMA 1 85 



marks off the number of accents which 
would naturally fall into one phrase, and 
also the climax of the phrase. The poem 
therefore which would join itself with 
music must present a compact construc- 
tion. All side words, as in the modern 
conventional phrase in speech, which do 
not add to the main word or bear to it a 
direct and important relationship, should 
be cut away. 

The material which the poet uses for his 
art (word language) naturally addresses 
itself to man's understanding. When the 
poet attempts by the phrasing of these 
words so to arrange them as to address 
man's feeling, he places them into a 
musical bar, distinguished by certain 
accordings of similar consonants, and 
joining his vowels with the language of 
tone, — as they in themselves represent 
melody, — he is fully equipped to appeal 
to man's feeling. 

The genuine folk-song, as it is handed 
down to us, presents the fitting union of 
melody with word and gesture. This 
folk-song, however indivorcibly we find 
poetry ingrown with melody, still pre- 



186 



A UDIENCES 



sents this union only in a childlike sim- 
plicity and a very straitened indigence. 
Poets of all times have restricted their 
verses to fill this straitened folk-song 
form, and so an unnatural union of poetry 
and music has come about in the great 
mass of vocal compositions, to the detri- 
ment of both arts. In the art -work which 
Wagner proposed, there should be no 
restriction of either poetry or music, but 
a freedom for both beyond any freedom 
which they could attain in their separate 
attempts to appeal to the entirety of 
man's nature or to interpret that nature 
in its completeness. 

Wagner believed that the ideal subject 
for the poet who would wed his poem 
to music was the myth, that originally 
nameless poem of the people, that we find 
in all ages treated in ever new methods 
by the poets of periods of finished cul- 
ture. For in it the conventional disap- 
pears, and such forms of human relations 
as are only applicable to the abstract 
reason vanish almost entirely, and there 
appears instead only the always intelligi- 
ble, the purely human, — but in that inimi- 



THE MUSICAL-DRAMA 1 87 



table concrete form which gives to every 
genuine myth the individual features that 
are so easily recognizable. 

Word-speech, the great language of 
thought, and tone-speech, the great lan- 
guage of the feeling, joined as a unit and 
presented to an audience in a living repre- 
sentation through the action and voice of 
great song-artists, — all this, joined with 
the intricate mechanism of the painter pos- 
sible to the modern stage and supported by 
the orchestra, — forms the most complete 
art-work of which man is capable. 

This orchestral support, the peculiar 
function which Wagner assigned to the 
orchestra, has caused a great hubbub of 
disputing voices among people who know 
nothing whatever of the whole affair, or 
among individual supporters of some single 
art, who have no grasp of art's entirety or 
of its possibilities. 

Up to this point, in so far as words 
in poetry have joined themselves with 
melody in music, we have presented to us 
nothing more than has been already sug- 
gested in the chapter on music in speech, 
apart from the fact that Wagner demands 



i88 



A UDIENCES 



a certain degree of attainment, a certain 
goal for each of the arts, below which he 
does not consider their union as possible. 
Whereas in music in speech, the interpret- 
ing artist — the reader — must compose 
the melodies to suit the poet's phrases, 
and in this music is made the servant of 
poetry, in the Musical-Drama both arts 
are shown on an equal plane ; that is, as 
man and woman they are both equal on 
the plane of humanity. 

There is absolutely no difference be- 
tween the voice in song and speech, — the 
word-speech of poetry, — except the arbi- 
trary difference of longer sustained tones, 
and the conventionalized scale. And in 
the art-work we are now considering there 
is only the difference of the ideal in the 
mind of the artist and the fact of reality, 
between the Shakespearian drama and the 
Musical-Drama which Wagner proposed. 
But with the introduction of the orchestra 
a tremendous difference presents itself. 
The orchestra is the organ through which 
harmony — the distinct attainment of the 
whole art of music, as an art — utters 
itself. Without going into details as to 



THE MUSICAL-DRAMA 1 89 



the structure of the orchestra, it will be 
sufficient to state the plain demand which 
Wagner makes upon it, and the power 
which he attributes to it. To the orches- 
tra he assigns the especial task of support- 
ing the dramatic gestures, of interpreting, 
nay, in a sense, of making them first possi- 
ble, — through its language bringing to our 
thorough understanding the " Unspeakable 
of Gesture." This "Unspeakable of Ges- 
ture " in itself needs explaining to one 
who has not closely followed Wagner's 
theories, or those of kindred thinkers. 

In speaking of action in poetry, it was 
suggested before that it is quite impossi- 
ble to express one's self intelligibly and 
to the fullest extent of his intentions to 
his fellow beings, without some bodily 
movement, no matter how slight this action 
may be, as in a mere movement of the 
small muscles surrounding the eyes or 
mouth. In this way gesture supplements 
speech. The feeling that is quite impos- 
sible for us to speak out in words, we can 
show quite plainly by gesture. Gesture 
is the language of feeling, as speech is 
the language of thought. Gesture, in its 



A UDIENCES 



rhythmic character, allies itself intimately 
with music. In fact, the whole glorious 
art of music owes its rise to the dance- 
gesture, as the musical-melody, the 
"absolute music" of the musician, owes 
its rise to the melody of the word-verse. 

Gesture, therefore, as the exponent of 
feeling, speaks out very plainly what to 
speech is " unspeakable. " It is just this 
faculty of speaking out the unspeakable 
which is the whole attainment of our 
modern instrumental music. Wagner, 
therefore, demanded that "the strangely 
potent language of the Orchestra " should 
be raised "to such a height, that at every 
instant it should plainly manifest to our 
feeling the Unspeakable of the Dramatic 
situation. In the exercise of this func- 
tion of the Orchestra its Music has no 
right to call attention to itself or to its 
harmony, but merely to forbode or shadow 
forth the mood — the atmosphere in which 
the dramatic scene is to be enacted." 
"Music cannot think: but she can mate- 
rialize thoughts, L e., she can give forth 
their emotional-content as no longer merely 
recollected but made present. " " The Cho- 



THE MUSICAL-DRAMA 191 



rus of Greek Tragedy has bequeathed to us 
its emotional significance for the drama in 
the Modern Orchestra alone. " 

This great Musical-Drama begins with 
the pure music of the orchestra, which 
foreshadows the mood or atmosphere 
wherein the materialization of the scene 
is to take place; this mood, as it is to 
gain in definiteness, must be presented by 
living beings, speaking in the "Thought 
Language " of the poet, as dramatic per- 
sonages, who must speak to us in the 
tongue which has already aroused expec- 
tancy in our emotions ; that is, they must 
speak to us in music. And they must 
speak definitely, so as to determine this 
same vague emotion already aroused by 
the orchestra, that is, they must speak to us 
in the word-verse. The drama must start 
with possibilities common to our com- 
mon life and compatible with it, if the 
artist would procure our human interest; 
but through the very perfection of the 
resources at its command, this Musical- 
Drama can lead us far above the affairs of 
our everyday life into the realms of The 
Marvelous. 



192 



A UDIENCES 



With such an intricate mass of theories 
through which to work out its realization, 
we might fear that this completed art- 
work would present problems unsolvable 
to the mass of humankind; but the fact is 
far otherwise. When we as audience rid 
ourselves of the thought that music should 
present merely "a pleasant tinkling to the 
ear," we find ourselves already with suffi- 
cient human equipment to grasp thoroughly 
the intent of the Musical-Drama. 

Wagner's personal demand of this art- 
work was that, as it was presented to the 
audience, it should not remind them of its 
aim or of the method of its outworking; 
but that its content "must instinctively 
engross us, as a Human Action vindicated 
' necessarily ' before our feeling." "The 
endlessly varied detail in it must reveal 
itself not only to the connoisseur, but to 
the simplest layman, as soon as he has 
attained to the requisite mood. It should 
produce an effect upon his spirits like 
that which a beautiful forest produces, 
in a summer evening, upon a lonely wan- 
derer who has just left the town." 

The form of this perfected Musical- 



THE MUSICAL-DRAMA 



193 



Drama is essentially and uniquely one; the 
motifs or phrases so present themselves, 
" that they condition each the other, 
and unfold themselves to a total breadth 
of utterance wherein the nature of Man, 
along one decisory chief-line, — L e., along 
a line competent to sum in itself Man's 
total essence, — wherein this nature is dis- 
played to Feeling in the surest and most 
seizable fashion. " 

There are points of great interest in 
Wagner's theories that have not been 
touched upon. One, his theory with 
regard to "keys" in music, is especially 
pertinent, considering the unconventional 
"key" freedom which we find in com-* 
posers like Dvorak; but the aim was to 
present just such points as would best 
serve to compare this last union of the 
arts with their more personal union in 
poetry. Wagner himself calls his art- 
work the child of a wonderful marriage, 
— music with poetry. This union of two 
great arts, bringing as they do all the 
other arts with them, causes a new work 
of art different from either, and yet like 
both. 

13 



CRITICISM 



HERE is one other art which, though 



X looked for in vain in the catalogue 
of Fine Arts, is still of supreme impor- 
tance and of consummate interest to us as 
audience, and that is the art of criticism. 
We allow to each artist his especial art. 
We give up ungrudgingly the whole list 
of the Fine Arts to the masters of form, 
of action, of color, of word, and of tone. 
We acknowledge these supreme in power, 
gracious in utterance, helpful in hope; 
but in proportion as we do justice to all 
artists and all arts, do we claim for our- 
selves, and as our own especial privilege, 
inviolate and secure, this precious art 
of criticism, erratic and undetermined 
though it has been overlong. 

Jealous enough to guard well our pre- 
rogatives we ought to be; but also watch- 




CRITICISM 



195 



ful enough not to accumulate them in 
ignorance, nor to hoard them in preju- 
dice. Not until we have freed ourselves 
of the accumulation of false and affected 
criticism which the critics, so acknowl- 
edged, have imposed upon us, shall we 
be able to acquire this art as a personal 
accomplishment, or have the ability to 
use it to the end of individual culture or 
development. 

The Fine Arts present to their audiences 
always just two points of attack, — their 
technique and their expression. As the 
audience directs its attention exclusively 
to one or the other, does it announce the 
character of its criticism, which, when 
considered individually, also announces 
the temperament and personality of the 
critic. 

By long and persistent custom, criti- 
cism has come to be considered as chiefly 
concerning itself with technical affairs, 
and unfortunately with these only in a 
depreciatory way. The critic has imposed 
upon himself as a primary duty to display 
his own vast knowledge by proclaiming 
the ignorance of the artist. To pick to 



196 



A UDIENCES 



pieces, to find fault, to show up in a bad 
light, have long been made the channel 
for the outpouring of personal vanity. 
Praise for the artist who has the power to 
make, has been jealously and purposely 
withheld by the critic who is himself un- 
able to make, which very withholding, 
though it may serve to announce the just 
and able judge, serves a second purpose 
in proclaiming lack of ability and of 
insight. The very word has become so 
great a reproach, that there is not one 
worthy artist who does not hold himself 
above its thrusts, out of range of its power, 
and inviolate from its effects. This is 
the state of affairs which the unrestrained 
outpouring of ignorant professional criti- 
cism, and the meek and unquestioning 
acceptance of this criticism by all audi- 
ences, have brought about. 

Now, it is the criticism of his audience 
which every artist needs for his own 
development and progress. He may scorn 
the acknowledged critics, may set at defi- 
ance the limitations with which they strive 
to bridle his power, and announce open 
warfare to all criticism ; but, watch an 



CRITICISM 



197 



artist's progress, and you will find that it 
is by the criticism of his audience that he 
grows and gains in force and creativeness. 

When a singer fails to hold his audi- 
ence; when an actor falls short of power 
in his climax (which his audience, by 
their withheld appreciation and enthu- 
siasm, shows him he has done) ; when a 
pianist interests by his fingering and not 
by the greatness of the theme which he 
presents; when a painter fails to touch 
the heart, and falls short of expressing 
his message, — then he realizes the un- 
questionable truth of the criticism of his 
audience, and accepts this as the irre- 
vocable word of fate. Through this he 
learns, for the audience that sees and 
hears plays no mean part in instructing 
the artist in his art. Every artist goes 
to school to his audience, and from them 
he learns his own inefficiencies as well as 
his powers. 

It is necessary for the audience, how- 
ever, in order to gain the power of spon- 
taneous and truthful criticism, to be 
entirely rid of the tradition of criticism 
which is everywhere extant about every 



A UDIENCES 



kind of art-work. Not that it is a disad- 
vantage to know such tradition; on the 
contrary, it is distinctly an advantage to 
be familiar with it, if one has at the same 
time the personal force to train it for 
use instead of ostentatiously riding it 
unbridled before the multitude, allowing 
himself to be carried here and there with 
no guidance of his own will. 

To return to the distinctions of criti- 
cism : we find there are, first, people who 
concern themselves exclusively with the 
technique of art; to them, skill of hand- 
ling, method of treatment, ability to 
reproduce, to represent, prove the charm 
of art. To this class belong the connois- 
seurs, the audience that know r s. Then 
there are those who, to the knowledge of 
the power of technique in art, add also a 
knowledge of art's power of expression, 
and though giving its just due to technical 
skill, give the higher praise to its power 
of expression. To this class belong the 
amateurs, the audience that loves as 
well as knows. Last, there are those 
who, unlearned in the differences of work- 
manship, untutored in art's intellectual 



CRITICISM 



1 99 



phases, bring still acute sensibilities, 
easily touched, and a capacity for joy, 
which is at the last the whole end of art. 

" Indeed, to know is something, and to prove 
How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more : 
But knowing naught, to enjoy is something too." 

To the first class of critics, art owes 
much. They inform its mind; they treas- 
ure its traditions; they encourage it to 
produce ; they give it wealth ; they pre- 
sent it with many opportunities, and open 
to it many advantages. Their criticism 
is always useful, particularly to beginners 
in art-study. They insist upon perfec- 
tion of form, perfection of the letter, and 
so restrain all eccentricities and vagaries. 
With them criticism is an affair of cold, 
calm justice. It is scientific, truthful, 
impersonal, objective. This audience is 
untouched by the inwardness of the sacra- 
ment; for them the outward and visible 
sign suffices. 

To the last class of critics belong the 
untrained mass of humankind. Their 
attitude toward art is as their attitude 
toward life. They like it, because — 
they like it. They don't know why, but 



200 



A UDIENCES 



they like it. They are undisciplined in 
controlling or guiding their emotions, and 
their criticism, though spontaneous and 
personal, is of weight only as the temper- 
ament of the individual himself makes 
him choose by instinct the best or the 
worst. It is not infrequent, however, 
that one finds in this audience that sim- 
plicity of the human heart which makes 
it choose always the best. This audience 
bows down to genius with a worship- 
fulness which is little short of idolatry. 
Their enthusiasm, unreasoning as it is, is 
stimulating to artists and encouraging to 
art; but it is more- helpful to the artist 
and to art than it is to the audience 
themselves. They give everything, and 
receive nothing for themselves, except 
blind sensation, — surely a poor return 
for their energy of enthusiasm, though 
they have no right to expect more. 

But there is the audience that knows 
and that loves; theirs is the criticism 
that is wise in appreciation, learned in 
intellect, sensitive to all moods of all 
artists, alive to all impressions, keen in 
enjoyment, discriminating in judgment, 



CRITICISM 



201 



helpful in applause. This is the audi- 
ence that cultivates in patient possession 
the talent of art appreciation, that best 
talent of all audiences. 

Further, there are a few art-attitudes, 
which, though deserving no place in art 
criticism, are still over-assertive, and 
always so much in evidence that they 
need to be condemned. Of these atti- 
tudes there is one superlative in effron- 
tery. It is so commonplace that it would 
cease to be noticed were it not so annoy- 
ing to all serious-minded audiences. One 
hears everywhere: "Oh, I'm not edu- 
cated up to that ! " Absurdity of absurdi- 
ties! Not the mere statement, not the 
plain fact of ignorance, but the assumed 
critical attitude of depreciation which 
almost invariably accompanies the remark. 
Who has not felt the rudeness of this 
thrust in the presence of some master- 
piece? Some vain, complaining thing 
would try to vindicate its own ignorance 
and numbness. The man would cast a 
slur who knows not of what he speaks ; 
would throw contempt upon that of which 
he is ignorant. 



202 



AUDIENCES 



Another art-attitude is assumed by the 
people who persistently assert that they 
"do not enjoy art." Their mistake is 
largely just here. Men of what is 
usually called inartistic temperament, 
very practical in disposition, would natu- 
rally take little interest in a work which 
could appeal only to the ultra-sensitive 
temperament which has been by some 
common mis-consent attributed to all 
artists. The fact is, there are many 
artists who are nothing more than stu- 
dents of character, as many another man 
with purely business pre -occupations pro- 
fesses to be, and one can expect to find 
in their art-work just the things which 
would interest their observant but less 
expressive brother. 

There is another art-attitude which is 
unfortunately prevalent, — the one which 
waits. It has always the desire to be 
"backed up by some one in authority." 
This attitude has an abundant excuse, 
for we have indeed "been connoisseured 
out of our senses, browbeaten out of all 
reliance on our own judgment." Various 
art-attempts are thrust rudely before many 



CRITICISM 



203 



audiences, and these, in surprise or timid- 
ity, meekly regulate their ideas in regard 
to these attempts according to what they 
have heard the connoisseurs declare for or 
against. It is astonishing to find how 
shy many persons are in expressing them- 
selves about a painting or a play, until 
they have the assurance and supreme sat- 
isfaction of finding out what the morn- 
ing paper has to say about it. With due 
respect to the morning paper, — when it 
happens to be good, as it does sometimes, 
— it would certainly seem that persons 
of culture, who had been accustomed to 
seeing works of art all their lives, might 
have at least some personal opinion, if not 
a good or artistic one. 

Personal criticism is always interesting 
when it is sincere and not too common- 
place. A perfect sincerity may perhaps 
reveal ignorance of art-facts, but it will 
never reveal that subtle enemy to art, — 
affectation. As one learns of the arts 
and of their languages, however, his criti- 
cism will grow above the level of his per- 
sonality, and acquire a distinction, a clear 
individuality, toward which modern art- 



204 



A UDIENCES 



thought is strongly tending. To attain 
the fearlessness of individual criticism, 
it is necessary to distinguish between 
gathering together facts about the arts 
and learning the truths of art. Facts are 
a mere matter of accumulation, as one 
piles together money, or foreign stamps, 
or " calling lists." Truths are more radi- 
cally elementary, lying essentially at the 
root of all things. 

When we concern ourselves with facts 
about the various arts, we may, if we are 
assiduous, become connoisseurs, — a title 
of a certain peculiar attainment perhaps; 
but when we concern ourselves with the 
truths of art, we grow broad in human 
sympathy and human helpfulness, we con- 
cern ourselves with the message which 
the art-work conveys. We demand that 
there always be intention; for where this 
is lacking, or indefinite, or debased, of 
what use an acre of paint and canvas, a 
ton of plaster and marble, a world full of 
scraping catgut and wheezy brass ? 

If one should disclose a secret, what 
harm, so the audience keep it well. The 



CRITICISM 



205 



laity know not how many mistakes are 
hung on exhibition walls, or put upon 
pedestals, or protected by footlights. A 
great multitude of art-attempters are prac- 
ticing before us, and we are not clever 
enough to suspect it. Small wonder that 
audiences do not relish all they see and 
hear ! No true artist ever practices before 
his audience; he keeps his completed 
efforts for them, for he holds his art too 
high to send any crippled or incomplete 
work into the world. It were perhaps 
too bold to follow this out in detail; if 
it suggest a more careful inspection of 
all art-works, it will suffice. It is not 
lack of execution, primarily, which is con- 
demned, though one has a right to de- 
mand a certain degree of technique in 
an artist, as one would in an engineer 
or a brick-layer; but it is utter lack 
of expression, which is the death-blow to 
art, which is in truth no art, and less 
than none. Good artists err sometimes 
through excess of expressed emotion, but 
there is always enough of intellect behind 
this to forgive the exuberance. Shall 
we not forgive, then, the little lack of 



206 



AUDIENCES 



sureness in line, delicacy in tint, purity 
in tone, — things which come readily 
enough with training, if the thought and 
the feeling be true? 

" How shall we know the true ? " Phi- 
dias can teach us much, modern chisel- 
ers perhaps more; Raphael can teach us 
much, modern colorists perhaps more ; 
Homer and Virgil and Dante have much 
to give, Shakespeare and Browning and 
Lanier far more; Beethoven and Wag- 
ner — what do we know of them ? 



THE TALENT OF ART 
APPRECIATION 



THIS talent is the most valuable pos- 
session of the artist's audience ; and 
while the power to create and the ability 
to produce are given to the artist, the 
gift of this talent to the audience is of 
scarcely less worth. As audience we 
have belittled our own gift, and in com- 
parison magnified the gift of the artist. 
We forget that when we apprehend an 
artist's meaning, when we grasp power- 
fully his aim and comprehend his art, we 
then see as he saw, hear as he heard, feel 
as he felt, and live for the time as he him- 
self lived. We are in such close sym- 
pathy with him and with his art, that we 
live on the same plane with himself, and 



208 



A UDIENCES 



thus our gift to receive raises itself to the 
greatness of his gift to give. 

" I have not chanted verse like Homer, no — 
Xor swept string like Terpander, no — nor carved 
And painted men like Phidias and his friend : 
I am not great as they were, point by point, 
But I have entered into sympathy 
With these four, running these into one soul, 
Who separate ignored each other's arts. 
Say, is it nothing that I know them all ? M 

While to the artist his one separate art 
means the whole world, and into it he 
translates all life, to the audience, enter- 
ing by sympathy into every art, is given 
the broader knowledge and sympathy with 
life itself through the reading of it trans- 
lated into many arts and interpreted by 
many artists. But this reading of life in 
art, though the inclination toward it may 
come by nature, the cultivation of it, 
exactly like the cultivation of the gift of 
the artist, must be a matter of method 
and attention, in order to receive the 
reflected benefit which such attention in- 
variably produces in the personal culture 
of the audience. There are no means so 
potent toward refinement and growth, so 
helpful toward progress and development, 



ART APPRECIATION 20g 



as the free and unprejudiced use of the 
eyes and ears, when these have by thor- 
ough training been brought into such 
close communion with thought and feel- 
ing as to be fitted to receive spontane- 
ously the directness of art's expressions. 

Far too little has been made of this 
talent of art appreciation, and too few 
audiences have deemed it worthy of cul- 
ture for its own sake. We envy this 
man's gift of song, that one's gift of 
words, another's skill in modeling; and, 
in our envy, neglect the very gift which 
we ourselves possess to see and hear and 
appreciate all that these three can express. 

The audience is not altogether to blame 
for this habit of neglect, or for this exal- 
tation of the artist above his audience, 
for it is in reality largely the fault of the 
artists that this separateness has come 
about. Artists have been rather unbend- 
ing in their attitude toward the uniniti- 
ated. They have accorded no one the 
entrance to art's magic realms who has 
not gained that entrance by the same 
long and oft-times tedious road which 
they themselves have traveled. They 
14 



210 



A UDIENCES 



are largely responsible for their audi- 
ence's ignorance of their art, for they not 
unfrequently condemn any effort to under- 
stand art, except the mechanical method 
of strait-laced technique which they them- 
selves have adopted. c< Do not talk about 
paintings " they say, "but paint. Do not 
talk about music, but play." This may 
be all very well from their point of view; 
but from the audience's point of view, it 
is not well at all. 

An artist with his wealth of artistic 
taste, feeling, and inspiration, creates, and 
perhaps knows not the value, humanly 
speaking, of his own creation. True, 
the artistic creating faculty is in itself far 
from critical. Wagner says : " Believe 
me, there is no greater delight than the 
completely uncritical frame of mind of the 
artist while creating." Still, no artist 
more diligently than Wagner tried in 
the moments between inspirations, — the 
the moments which were not uncritical, — 
to teach men to understand art, — not his 
own art alone (which he so confidently 
dedicated, not to artists, not to connois- 
seurs, but to the people, the mass of 



ART A PP RECTA TION 2 1 1 



humankind), but all art in its highest 
and broadest possibilities. 

It is a very hopeful sign that to-day 
there are many artists who are willing to 
lay aside chisel, brush, and pen, and talk 
kindly and familiarly with their audi- 
ences; and it is doubtful whether any- 
thing they do in marble, color, or tone 
ever proves so widely beneficial in art's 
progress as do these kindly and helpful 
talks. Aside from the benefit to the 
audience, these give at the same time an 
added power to the artist; for, open a 
man's eyes, unstop his ears, and you have 
his inner self within your power, and 
can, if you choose, send in, through the 
newly awakened senses, a first impression 
tremendously strong and of very lasting 
power. 

As for the talk of the audience, one 
might say that there has always been 
enough of this, for every art-work is sur- 
rounded by a ceaseless chatter and hub- 
bub of many voices, proclaiming first this 
thing, then that, and in the end, — nothing. 
As audience let us have the discretion to 
keep silent when we have really nothing 



i 

I 
i 

! 



212 



A UDIENCES 



to say. Let us keep art, at least, apart 
from the fashion of chatter, for chatter- 
ing audiences can never be touched very 
deeply. 

When we hear in a picture gallery 
some ignorant but didactically inclined 
informer start his absurd harangue for the 
benefit of the bystanders, the ludicrous- 
ness of it appeals to us strongly enough. 
We pity the crowd, that they shall carry 
away with them these " false notions." 
But let us listen when some student 
speaks low with his friends, — 

" There's a thing that's fine! I like 
that, you know. See how strong the 
figure of Adam is; the shoulder muscles 
are superb; and the Eve, bending, how 
tender and sorrowful ! and Abel's figure — 
did you ever see anything in plaster so 
limp, so heavy, and utterly dead? See 
how the thumb falls inwards toward the 
palm, always a sign of death. Barrias is 
a master ! " 

Ignorance stands around, listening, as 
ignorance is always listening the world 
over. It is often ready enough to be 
filled and have the reproach of its empti- 



ART APPRECIATION 21 3 



ness taken away from it, God knows! 
The common crowds, whose one poor 
motive, curiosity, leads them sometimes 
toward works of art (for they would 
see what the rich buy and put in their 
houses), have little hope or thought to 
understand such things. Their poor dull 
eyes, dazed by the unaccustomed splen- 
dors, are sightless indeed, until some 
little spark like this chances to light 
upon them, and the open-eyed wonder- 
ment grows, and they too learn to look 
somewhat for themselves. 

Never until we learn to get something 
out of art and all arts for ourselves ', shall we 
learn to increase this talent, to cultivate 
this our gift. Every audience should get 
from art something personal and good, 
something they can claim sincerely as 
their own. Sincerity in social life is a 
rare trait. Sincerity of art appreciation 
is equally rare. It is a matter of growth ; 
but growth comes only with individual 
and consciously directed effort. 

If every girl who spends an hour or two 
a day in finger gymnastics on a piano, 
would spend half that time in trying to 



214 



A UDIENCES 



find out what music means, what sound is, 
what tone intends, how phrases and move- 
ments are formed of it, and what they 
convey, how the composer uses them and 
to what end, musical appreciation would 
grow marvelously. What a difference a 
little such study would make in the criti- 
cal task of the average concert audience ! 
Small wonder that concerts are stupid to 
many people; so would a lecture in Greek 
be, and for precisely the same reason. 

To appreciate with any sort of discrimi- 
nation, one must know. The instinct 
to enjoy is merely the embryo from 
which this growth is to spring. Our 
inherent natural inclinations may lead us 
to partiality toward the grind-organ or 
the orchestra, the nonsense jingle or 
Browning and Shakespeare; but our in- 
herent natural inclinations are sometimes 
a better guide-post to our inefficiencies 
than to our possibilities. We have far 
outgrown the naivete of the age which 
believes that " reading and writing come 
by nature." We have arrived at the 
knowledge that this talent of art appre- 
ciation is a matter of culture, and no 



ART APPRECIATION 21 5 



further excuse remains for its neglect 
than lack of opportunity; and this is 
now a very lame excuse for even the 
most out-of-the-way nineteenth century 
audience. 



APPLAUSE 



" An audience shows its high-water mark of 
culture and appreciation by its applause, — not 
hand-clapping alone, for intense silence is far 
stronger testimony, and the little holding-of-the- 
breath-to-listen is of deeper meaning than either." 

A S audience we have seen and heard 



something, perhaps much; what 
of our applause? 

The artist has played his part; his 
work is done. Struggling with the heart- 
gasps of many failures, he has finally 
arrived at a worthy accomplishment. See- 
ing all things, feeling all things, wrest- 
ling with all problems, he has put before 
us on art's stage the best of life, that we 
may see and feel, and so learn. He draws 
our attention from nature for a moment 
only to show us the content of nature, that 




APPLAUSE 



217 



we may see her again in clearer vision. 
He draws our attention from men for 
a while to show us all that is in man, that 
we may live more wisely among our fel- 
lows. He draws our thought toward God 
that he may show us some Pisgah height 
his soul achieves, that we too may climb. 

Into his marble he has breathed his own 
breath of life, into color he has wrought 
his utmost strength, in words and tones 
he has poured forth his very life. Freely 
he has given his life-blood, and for us ; 
and now, in the end, is it nothing to us, 
to us who pass by ? 

We are gay, we are trivial, we would 
be amused. We demand of art that she 
shall entertain us, and sometimes she has 
seemed to stoop. The signal is given, 
The curtain is raised. She has come 
before us and bowed to our will. She 
has showed us pretty things, gay things, 
pleasant things, things as we like to look 
upon them through the veil of seeming; 
when, lo, in the midst of our gayety, with- 
out forewarning or proclamation, some- 
thing steals out upon art's stage, dimly 
visible at first, then clearer and more 



218 



A UDIENCES 



clear, until, flooded with a light we know 
not, w T e see the world and life in propor- 
tions new and strange. Laughter is 
done. The trivial speech we would have 
said dies on our lips, and in our hearts 
grows a joy surpassing all that we have 
known before, for the veil has been rent 
for us, w r e have awakened, and now, at 
last, we see. One has touched our eyes. 
One has touched our ears. We dare not 
deny him. 

The artist's work is done. He awaits 
our applause. Shall we let him stand that 
little uncertain moment, — that moment 
of yearning and pain? Shall we busy 
ourselves with our wraps, and let him 
turn from us in despair? — that despair, 
so great that only the artist-soul can con- 
ceive its depths. Shall we hesitate until 
too late, when he is gone? Oh, that the 
artist-cry could reach the hearts of all 
audiences, to teach them the tremendous 
power of encouragement they wield in 
this testimony of acclaim; that they 
might prize it too dearly to dissipate it in 
showers upon the mediocre and debased, 
but keep it to assuage the thirst of the 



I 



APPLA USE 



219 



great souls who have given a new hope, a 
new joy to life ! 

The artist awaits our applause. It is 
his right, — more divine than all rights 
of kings, more human than any right of 
man. Let us hold it very dear, this our 
power of giving, that we may give it 
intelligently and heartily, and always to 
that which is best, for " excellence of all 
things is one. " 



ENCORE 



HE curtain is down. The audience 



L still lingers. It pleads for an 
encore. Again and again the applause 
fills the Temple of Fame, — handclapping 
now, with loud clamoring of tongues. 
Happy for the audience if they have not 
aroused themselves too late. Happy for 
the audience if the artist be not already 
gone, though they have still an abiding 
consciousness of his presence. 

Remember back to the world's great 
audiences, and one finds too often a sur- 
prised silence or a dull endurance. The 
applause has often come late, very late. 
It is long ere the wild cry encore! encore! 
rings out through the world, — the sure 
attest of lasting fame. 

We as audience have yet this one thing 




ENCORE 



221 



to learn, — to grasp intensely the con- 
tent of the moment, for there can be in 
reality no repetition, and to applaud to- 
day and now, lest our delayed encore 
vibrate against irresponsive walls, when 
the heart for whom the applause was 
meant is gone past recall. 



"The artist has the power of seeing 
beforehand a yet unshapen world, of tast- 
ing beforehand the joys of a world yet 
unborn, through the stress of his desire 
for Growth. But his joy is in imparting, 
and ... so he finds, too, the hearts, ay 
finds the senses to whom he can impart 
his message. ,, 

Richard Wagner. 




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